The Umchoaen #2 // Review
Aida’s mom wanted to talk to her about something important. Aida’s Mama was telling her that she needed to know something…Just as she was ab yet to speak, there was a flash of blinding white light and Aida’s Mama was sucked into it. Things haven’t been the same for her since…and they’ve about to get a bit more complicated in The Umchoaen #2. Writer/artist David Marquez and colorist Marissa Louise enter the second chapter for Aida and her extended ensemble at a school for magic. It’s a fun journey when it’s not viewing too close to similar narrative work in other media.
Daniel says that he can’t sleep. Scares Aida half to death. He’s a stranger. He apologizes. But she lashes out at him. Very frustrated. It’s a very frustrating situation. So many new people. So many strangers and not at all certain of what it is that’s going on. Thankfully, Daniel is a friendly type. And since the both of them are in a rather bewildering school, both in a position to make a pretty strong friendship, he’s going to tell her things regarding the significance of how she got to be there. But he’s not going to have much time to talk about it. It’s a busy time at this pool. Big things are going on.
There’s a hell of a lot of backstory to layer in around the edges of everything. Marquez does a pretty good job of leaving backstory against the drama in the foreground. It’s kind of difficult to maintain the right balance. There are moments that feel a little bit to engaged in the past for the second issue of a new series. That being said, there’s enough in and around the edges of everything to draw enough if an interest in Aida to be interested enough in the past to be able to understand a little bit more about this central conflict that he’s trying to render at the heart of the series.
Marquez’s art moves the story along with a nuanced hand. Some fantasy adventure fiction has a tendency to want to show breathtaking, vistas, and strange landscape and things of that nature. This is not one of those fantasies. This is one of that focus is quite square on interpersonal drama between people who might as well be strangers. So it’s a very social kind of powerful magic that’s being brought to the page here.
There are so many elements of the basic premise of this series that feel like they’re echoing so many other elements of so many other series to have come before it. It’s not quite where it needs to be in order to be something that’s going to have its own unique impact unless Marquez is going to be able to find some unique presence Aida Between the art and the dialogue and her basic prsence on the page, Aida IS an appealing character. All of the basic elements are clearly there.. It’s just a matter of getting her to.
