Hornsby & Halo #0 // Review
Zach is visiting his parents. In prison. They’re not nice people. And as complicated as it as that is, it's even more complicated for him. His parents are involved in a legal activity. They want him to do something for them. And he's tempted to do it. But he's got a whole lot else on his plate. For one thing, he's beginning to realize the true nature of his true identity. He's going to learn a whole lot more in Hornsby & Halo #0. Writer Peter J, Tomasi and artist Peter Snjejbjerg continues a fun contemporary urban fantasy adventure with colorist John Kalisz.
Zach has a vivid vision of turning his angelic power upon them and escaping with them. Of course, he's not going to do that. He's merely thinking. And so when he leaves the penitentiary, he's every bit as lost as he was when he went in. Thankfully, Rose is there for him. She has also been having rather vivid visions of what she might be doing with her demonic power. They're both a little lost. They're both looking for the right answers. Maybe they'll find them visions of the past that are brought to them courtesy of their pets.
The “Unbelievables” crossover event continues with another issue #0. This one gets into some interesting moments in the early childhood of rose and Zach that reveal a little bit more about what it's been like growing up without knowing anything about who they really are. And now they're beginning to find that out. There's a interesting echo effect between early childhood ignorance, and contemporary awareness that serves the issue quite well. It's actually a really good starting point for people who might not otherwise be familiar with the series. Quite a bit of story has already happened. The issue finds a convenient starting point for anyone who might want to pick up the series from the current issue.
There's a delicate interplay between mundane realities of contemporary real life and something much more spectral and fantastic. Snjejbjerg find a respectable balance between the two of them. There is a real emotional deaf that's seen on the page in the faces of the central ensemble of characters. Kalisz’s colors provide an extra layer of atmosphere that feels warm and comforting, even in the midst of the darker elements of the series. Through it all Rose and Zach remain the center of the action figure even when they not the most prominent thing on the page.
The characters realize the fall story on their origins for the first time. Aside from that, there isn't really a whole lot that fuels genuinely do in this particular issue. That's not a bad thing. Roseanne Zach are coming of age. And any serial that involves that as a central theme is going to involve a lot of repetition. Because as a child, you need to learn the same lessons over and over again in different ways in order to really embrace them. There's a kind of an earthbound realism about that repetition that feels very comforting.
