Kaya #32 // Review
It’s taken a lot of time. Months. The leader of the army had been feeding false information to the enemy for quite some time. The army had to wait for the right moment to strike. Everything had to be in place in order for the army to take maximum advantage against the enemy. Now the trap is set and it’s time to strike in Kaya #32. Writer/artist/colorist Wes Craig tells another tale of Kaya’s future as she hunts the kingdom’s elite assassins. It’s an action-based adventure with more than a little bit of drama moving swiftly across the page.
The assault on the assassins is over in less than a page. That’s the easy part. The tricky part lays ahead. Kaya addresses her troops. She tells them that the time has come. They are going to lay siege to the Kingdom of the Qolmek. They all seem really excited about it. Kaya knows that there are decisions to be made regarding the coming assault. She’s dealing with a lot of people with a lot of different and possibly conflicting desires. It’s not going to be easy to keep everyone together as the assault looms on the horizon.
Craig manages to carve a lot of intricacy into a simple fantasy story of a pre-modern army preparing for war. It’s a fun combination of different elements that feature the title character all grown-up as a veteran of many battles. It’s fun to see her at an advanced stage of experience on the edge of a great conflict. There’s a lot of potential in the action as Kaya and company prepare for the big conflict that’s coming in the issues ahead. The pacing seems to be set for a story that could run over the course of several issues. It's a good foundation for what is to come.
Answer remarkable how easily Craig brings across the intensity of a huge crowd. There’s a heroic feeling to the visuals that seems to be caught in just the right light by simple washes of color and delicate line work. Adult Kaya feels like a steely, believable progression from how she had appeared throughout much of the early going of the series as a young adventurer. It all has a powerful sense of direction about it htat manages ot maintain a firm visual momentum.
The beginning of a whole new adventure is firmly established on the page. The Lipa head suggests a lot of adventures that could have happened between the issues. Though there seems to be a very definite ending ahead for the whole series, there certainly is enough appeal in the character and her world to suggest many more brief adventures that would exist along the of the central narrative. That's all potential in the future, though. As for the print present moment, Craig is developing an interesting adventure for a more firmly-established Kaya as she heads-off to a meeting with some kind of destiny in the issues ahead.
