Standstill #7 //Review
There’ a sniper on Ryker’s trail. It’s not like Ryker has much to live for at this stage. He’s gotten the rvenge he’s been looking for and now he’s completely out of ideas. There’s a metric ton ofrecreational pharmaceuticals running through his system. He’s got nowhere else to go but up in Standstill #7. Writer Lee Loughridge reaches the penultimate chapter of his sci-fi action drama with artist Alex Riegel. There’s a danger at the bottom of everything that Ryker doesn’t seem to care about, but it’s interesting to see an action dynamic that also features such heavy drama around the edges.
The sniper’s name is Jack Knife. He’s a government-hired hitman who has been sent-in to get a very dangerous piece of tech from Ryker by any means necessary. That’s going to involve a rifle, but it’s also going to involve a whole lot of knives. Meanwhile Ryker finds himself in the company of the last person he would have expected to want to help him out. They’ll both find themselves pretty far from other people off in a nice place in the middle of nowhere when they assassin comes to try to collect. With any luck they might make it out alive.
Loughridge begins to gather everythign near the end of the series. The interpersonal dynamic between a couple of old firends hangs together in the center of the series, which is honestly a bit weird. Wherever it was that the series appeared to be going after the first couple of issues, it DIDN’T seem to be going in the direction of a buddy action drama. Nevertheless, that IS where the series has ended up and it’s not altogether unsatisfying as Loughridge makes his way through the final moments before the big climax to the series that’s coming next month.
The widescreen format of the series continues to be immensely appealing even if its initial novelty seems to have worn-off somewhere around the beginning of the series. Riegel makes use of the landscape format of the comic book. to add-in details aroundtheedges that firmly find a very spacious setting for all of the action in an atmosphere of the sort not often found on the action comics page. The detail and finesse may be lacking a BIT in the course of the issue, but it’s still solidly entertaining visually as Ryker struggles to pry himself out of rock bottom in hopes of surviving assassination at the hands of the U.S. government.
The overall thrust of the series seems to be focussing on U.S. policy in dealing with...well...kind of a lot. The ideas at the heart of the series don’t necessarily fit into the theme all that well, though. And the overall idea of a device that can stop time DOES suggest much larger issues that go well beyond contemporary politics on a whole bunch of different levels that Loughridge really could have been pointing the narrative at. It’s too bad Loughridge didn’t focus a bit mre on the existential end of the fantasy tech that he’s bringing to page and panel.
