Rook Exodus #7 // Review
A group of red der are attacking a group of wild African Painted Dogs. Not exactly the sort of thing that might normally happen, but this sort of thing n’t happening WHERE it would normally happen. There’s a snowstorm that’s raging on the planet Exodus. Things are getting particularly brutal as high-tech cybernetic beastmasters engage in civil war on the small planet in Rook Exodus #7. Writer Geoff Johns and artist Jason Fabok continue their appealing sci-fi adventure series with colorist Brad Anderson. The series continues to stalk its way around the periphery of its true potential in a largely satisfying chapter.
Rook is looking-in on the fortress of Matterhorn--the mistress of the goats. She’s nearly as stubbon as they are and not likel to trust a guy who controls a bunch of crows. Neverheless, Rook has decided to go and make contact with her. Hopefully things will work out better fbetween the crows and the goats than they did between the red elk and the painted dogs, but it’s always difficult to tell quite who is going to get along with who in a planet-wide civil war. And Rook has some energy behind him...some momentum given all that’s been happening. There’s every possibility that a meeting with Matterhorn might just work out.
Johns has a really sharp and clever idea for a cience fiction action setting. The politics running through everything feel remarkably well-articulated given the fact that every major character in a big, sprawling ensemble has a personality that is paired with an animal. The animals paired with the characters allow for clever characterizaton that lends them a kind of instant recognition. Matterhorn is a goat-like personality in charge of a large number of equally stubborn goats. She comes across with a great deal of appeal as Rook tries to form an alliance with her.
Much of the action of the issue takes place in a snowstorm. It’s not a setting that gets used all that often, which is a real pittty as it DOES have the power to amlify the drama of nearly any situation. Fabok and Anderson take the snowy blizzard and turn it into something beautiful as a brutal backdrop for combat between animals and the people psychically linked to them through advanced tech. The snow seems to be blowing off the pageas it tumbles from panel to panel in the midst of it all.
Johns has had a very solid sense of execution about the series that’s worked quite well over the course of the series thus far. The prinal nature of a war between animals has real potential to feel almost mythic in its iintensity. As it is, Johns seems to be smending way too much time on interpersonal politics to really grab that opotential and make it work for him, bt as it is, it’s a really funsseries that continues to have a great deal of momentum as it moves towards the end of its next major plto arc.
