Lost Fantasy #6 // Review
They’re known as the Dogs of Hell. They’re a magic biker gang. There’s a guy looking for the bar that they hang out at. He’s got an eyepatch and a ridiculously large sword. It’s not that visible on his way in, though. So he’s just having a drink at the bar when the bartender asks him if he’s lost. Things are about to get ugly in Lost Fantasy #6. Writer Curt Pires and artist Luca Casalanguida continue their fantasy sci-fi action mash-up with a few interesting and provocative encounters that run the course of a giant-sized sixth issue.
In response to the question, the one-eyed stranger asks for a whiskey on the rocks. A little later he asks to see the guy who runs the place. There’s some speculation that the stranger in question might be either stupid or suicidal. Turns out he’s neither. Turns out he’s able to do an acrobatic backflip past the bikers who are advancing on him from behind with archaic weapons. When he comes back down, he’s got a sword the size of a closet door that he’s pulled out of thin air. One of the bikers has a semiautomatic firearm, but it’s going to be kind of hard to be effective with it when his hand is severed.
Pires layers-in the action through a fusion of science fiction and fantasy. The action plays-out in broad strokes of cliche that don’t have much to offer the type of person who has seen this sort of thing a million times already. There IS a sense of novelty about the fusion that travels some distance towards being able to justify the story, but it lacks a larger sense of appeal. Much of Pires’ basic plot relies on plot elements that simply get washed-out in all the old action tropes which populate the script.
The manga-inspired art style of Luca Casalanguida. propels the action across the page with impressive impact. Everything is painfully over-exaggerated almost to a point of parody. As it should be. The dramatic scenes are impressively reserved by contrast...though not so much as to be brilliantly textured or nuanced or anything like that. That being said: impact is competently carried across the page from one scene to the next as the hero continues his journey through sinister figures in a couple different locations.
There’s more than enough action and tension to keep the pages turning, but the overall presence of Lost Fantasy has been largely forgettable. Now that the series has reached its sixth issue, it IS apparent that the series is going to be able to move quite competently through the issues that are going to resolve the basic conflict that Pires has placed on the page, but it’s difficult to imagine the story being dragged in a direction that might feel compelling beyond the turning of the pages. For now, Luca Casalanguida’s art is more than enough to make the series worth reading...and forgetting.
