Ghost Pepper #9 // Review
Loloi is on the move in her little six-wheeled truck.. She’s not alone. There are others with her who are taking the battle stright to Bataar. Lord Bataar isn’t exactly impressed, but it’s not a whole lot of stress for a man in charge of a very advanced army. Loloi isn’t exacrl defenseless. She may be taking a food truck into a war, but she’s got more than a few things going for her in Ghost Pepper #9. Wrtiter/artist Ludo Lullabi hits a high point in the action of his series. Color comes to the page courtesy of Adriano Lucas.
One might have expected a relatively small force to be kind of insignificant. Perhaps it wouldn’t even be seen as any kind of a serious threat until it was too late. That might have gien Loloi and her friends a bit of a window to slip through and do some realdamage to Bataar. Of course...it becomes all too apparent that they’re in over their heads when a mako formation appears to blast the hell out of them. Death from the skies is going to be very difficut to avoid for a food truck without a whole lot of maneuverability.
Lullabi ratchet-sup the tension with a strikingly tense assauly sequence. It might be a really simple fight sequence, but there really are a hell of a lot of different units in play that could easily seem a little confusing under the wrong circumstances. Lullabi DOES manage to keep everything distinct between different threats and tensions in a largely satisfying combat that moves quite fluidly across the page. It’s a fun action sequence that doesnt’t attempt to bog itself down in too much detail. There’s just enough there on the page to engage the reader without overpowering the momentum of the action.
The momentum of the action IS given a great amount of life by Lullabi’s art. Lallabi’s art renders speed and power quite brilliantly. It’s all quite clearly ther as Lolloi continues to encraoch her way into the forefront of danger. The total scope of what it is that’s going on on the field of battle isn’t quite as vivid on the page as it could be, but that’s largely because it’s being seen from the perspective of Lolloi, who has only a limited view of what’s going on from her perspective.Still...if Lullabi is looking to get the perspective of Lolloi in the midst of the battle, there would be ways of making that perspetive just a bit more dynamic than it is on the page.
Small matters of perspective aside, the ninth issue of the series has a great deal of power and elegance in its simplicity. The twisting fortuned for the villains seem to be interesting enough in their own way, but it’s too bad that Lolloi herself isn’t a bit more of a focus for the current issue as she really is the heart of the series. There’s a lot being thrown at the page and...as a result there’s kind of a lot between her and the reader. It’s a bit frustrating.
