Cheetara: World Breaker #1 // Review
In her heart she knows that she is the strongest of her kind. The pride of her people. She is unique in this universe. And she will not be defeated. You’d think that this might be kind of a reassuring thing to know beyond all shadow of any doubt. Of course...not when it’s floowing her head completely every time that she rises to consciousness. It’s actually kind of terrifying. It is, however, only the beginning for her in Cheetara: World Breaker #1. Writer Nate Cosby opens an intriguing fantasy adventure with artist David Cousens. Color comes to the page courtesy of Roshan Kurichiyanil and Arancia Studio.
It’s Thundera before the war. Cheetara is a prominent figure who is on her way to a wedding that she’d rather not go to. Issues of royalty and politics are only the least of it. Cheetara is subject to the surface-level thoughts of everyone that she ever meets. This is bad enough in her daily life, but in the presence of a large number of people, it’s positively deafening. Still--she IS a prominent figure and the only excuse to miss the wedding would be her own death. She’s expecting to be uncomfortable. She’s NOT expecting to run into someone whose thoughts are completely unknown to her.
Crosby takes a few elements from the popular franchise and fuses them around a very sharp piece of fantasy writing that expands the background of the franchise considerably. There’s a colossal darkness about Crosby’s writing that lends an impressive degree of depth to the backstory of the popular franchise. Cheetara always DID seem like the most interesting character in the fantasy ensemble. Crosby does justice to the hero’s potential in an issue that explores some of the overwhelming weight of fate on the hero in question.
Cousens frames Cheetara as a deftly powerful energy. The full reality of Cheetara’s speed isn’t quite brought to the page with the kind of intensity that it could achieve. While the action end of Cheetara’s ability aren’t quite as intense as they could be, the dramatic impact of her sixth sense is given a breathtaking reality. Crosby frames the weight of her fate with big. breathtaking splash pages of text followed by the wide-eyed sudden jolt of consciousness from Cheetara. It’s a truly haunting visual that hits the page on more than one occasion. The drama brilliantly drives the visual end of the fantasy drama.
The script plays with the hidden complexities of a strikingly simple action fantasy franchise. The dark complexity of Crosby’s script does a clever job of adding depth to a franchise that really feels like an oversimplified good vs. evil sort of a dynamic. Crosby’s script touches on such topics as the ugliness of war, the desolation of being an outcast and the intolerable inequality of a multi-tiered caste system. There’s a striking thematic resonance about the series that takes another refreshing look at one of the most interesting characters in the ThunderCats franchise.
