Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #7 // Review
Prince Salaka is waking-up. He’s more than.a little bit excited. He HAS afterall had the rest of his body returned to him. So he’s going to have a bit of difficulty focussing on much of everything. Prince Salaka IS going to get ack to the whole business of overthrowing the juggernaut, restoring order and saving his people. Before he does so, however, he’s going to have a conversation with his computer in Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #7. Writer Robert Kirkman continues his space fantasy series with artist Ryan Ottley and colorist Annalisa Leoni. The adventure continues with a pleasantly skewed weirdness in its latest issue.
Prince Salaka has a slightly different take on things now that he’s completely himself again. He’s been hanging out around his computer for long enough that he. feels kind of uncomfortable simply calling it “computer.” So he’s going to have to start calling it something else. The computer is overjoyed to get some sort of a concept of personhood by receiving its own name, but there IS the small matter of working out precisely what that name is going to end-up being. After the whole naming thing...the computer can decide on some sort of a face to project so that it can feel mre human. Elsewhere, there are serious concerns about the juggernaut and its power. Someone is going to have to stand-up agaisnt the tyrant...
Kirkman guides the narrative into a new plot arc that feels like it might be kind of interesting once it really gets going. Though there IS a matter of time spent with the big villain. It’s fun and everything, but the real heart of the issue seems to be the relationship between Salaka and his computer. It’s just weird enough to be familiar in the midst of a space fantasy story. So much of what Kirkman is developing for this series is appallingly boring. It’s the little things that make it tolerable.
Ottley latches-on to the more interesting things that Kirkman manages in his script. The emtional center of the series aactually comes across quite vividly. The characters thmselves have a beautifully epressive quality about them. It’s exaggerated, but in a pleasantly appealing way that embraces some of the strange energy of Kirkman’s script. The color is strikingly dynamic without being over the garage. That all fits on the page quite well.
There's quite a bit of potential in and around the edges of the weirdness of the series. And really if Kirkman and Company were to spend a little bit more time focusing on the weirdness, it would be a lot more appealing. As it is, the more traditional space fantasy element of it it just doesn't hold together all that well. It feels like it's an echo of a shadow of 1 million things that I've made the comics page countless times before over the past few decades..There’s something good in Battle Beast...but it’s not all that clear quite precisely what it is...
