The Scorched #40 // Review
The Reaper and the Redeemer are having a deep conversation about the fate of the world. The Reaper has seen the end. He knows what’s going to happen. It’s going to be the end of the world...and the Redeemer is the only one that’s left. The Reaper can’t let that happen. The two divine agents come to blows in The Scorched #40. Writer John Layman delivers a story to the page that is rendered by artist Stephen Segovia. Color animates and resonates the action on the page courtesy of Dinei Ribeiro. It’s an interesting distillation of celestial drama the continues the progression of The Scorched.
It’s not just precognition or clairvoyance or anything like that. The Reaper actually claims to have been to the future...or not. Time travel is involved. And it’s entirely possible that someone involved in the situation might not be an entirely reliable narrator, so The Scorched aren’t really all that certain quite WHAT to believe under the circumstances. Things could get really complicated and really ugly really, really quickly if someone doesn’t step-in to try to clarify just what the Hell is going on. Honestly it might not be that bad a thing if someone DID die. Things have become such a serious mess for everyone involved.
Layman delivers a respectable amount of complexity to the page. As tricky and complicated and messy as time travel stories can get, this one actually seems to be pretty well structured and conceived of. It all seems to be coming together very well in this particular issue. That being said, it's not quite as, well articulated as it could be. And there's a lot of things moving in around the edges of the central conflict that really don't need to be there. Theoretically this would have been a much better issue if they had just focused on the conflict between the Reaper and the Redeemer and not cluttered it-up with additional bits of plot development.
Segovia frames the drama quite admirably. Everything seems to be hitting the page at just the right moment in just the right way. There's a definite and definitely palpable intensity about everything. It's remarkable how little actual action hits the page. Segovia is so good at delivering the drama and the interpersonal aggression to the page that it's easy to forget that they're really isn't a whole lot of actual physical violence going on. Ribeiro does such a good job with the atmosphere and the radiance of the magical energy on the page. The mood, tone and atmosphere of everything feels quite intense.
Wore it not for so much else that I've been going on in a series, this would be a really, really interesting individual dynamic to work out. And it's not terribly. But it is a hell of a lot of fun to see the conflict between.reaper and Redeemer. it's strikingly clear in its delivery. It's just too bad there's so much going on around the edges. It would be much better if this particular issue could just focus on those two characters.
