ThunderCats #24 // Review
He opens the book and his sword begins to speak to him. It’s telling him about history. Lion-O already knows at least some of what The Sword of Omens is telling him, but there IS new information. It’s not easy to take it all in, but he’s going to have to understand it if he’s gong to lead his people to prosperity in ThunderCats #24. Writer Declan Shalvey allows the narrative to take a breather while delivering a whole lot of backstory through The Book of Omens. The story comes to the page courtesy of artist David O'Sullivan and the color work of Arancia Studio.
The story of the ThunderCats runs in cycles. Successes and achievements pile ontop of each other until some sort of a golden age is achieved...only to be completely dashed to pieces by chance and circumstances, forcing the cats to rebuild another golden age. Thsus is it the case that Lion-O must deal with various issues bringing his people back into the kind of prosperity that they had enjoyed in an earlier life. If he’s going to be able to do so, however, he’s going to have to build on the wisdom of his sword and the book that it has opened.
Shalvey takes a breather from the forwward momentum of the plot with a look back at something of a comprehensive history of the ThunderCats with all of the information that has been delivered throguh the ranchise thus far. It’s an admirably concise history of the characters who have been through much over the decades through various animated series and comc books. More than merely a history, there IS a bit of drama revealed as Lion-O has a somewhat meticulously-rendered history by the Sword of Omens. It’s quite well-written on the whole.
O’Sullivan is given the opportunity to render a lot of very simple poster-like visuals throughout the issue. The layout of the issue is made to look like pages of The book fo Omens with the conversation between Lion-O and the Sord of Omens playing-out in the margins. It’s a pleasant departure from a more traditional comic book format. O’Sullivan’s sense of composition and layout for the issue seems well-rendered on a number of different levels. It’s not often that an artist is given the opportunity to deliver what is essentially an issue’s worth of pin-ups in the context of an actual narrative. OSUllivan does a good joob with it.
It’s the type of thing that can be quite effective if used sparingly in the course of a long-running series. It’s nice to have a look back at what’s already happened every now and then. And while it isn’t perfectly integrated with ongoing stresses, it’s far from being a dry encyclopedic entry on the in-universe history of the franchise. There’s nothing inherent in the plot that hasn’t been done quite often before in various different space fantasy stories, but it’s nice to get a comprehensive look back at the ThunderCats thus far.
