Creative Staff:
Story: Joe Casey
Art: Nathan Fox, Connor Willumsen
What They Say:
The crew of the Dreadnaught Tiger is within reach of their goal! But can they get to Captain Victory — either one of them — before they’re destroyed by the hostile environments they’re stuck in? Cosmic Armageddon is right around the corner!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With this being the penultimate issue of the series, Captain Victory has a lot to do in order to get us to a feeling of closure the next time around. Its goal here is to put all the pieces in the right place so it can hit the story hard next time and just get everything accomplished it has to. Which isn’t an easy job considering the way the book has played out after a really strong first issue and then feeling like it’s fallen apart considerably with each new installment since then. This installment is a little bit better in a way because it’s actually moving us forward a bit and things feel like they’re happening, but there are still parts that feel like they’re just there, and uncertain as to how it’s going to connect to the bigger story that’s going on.
The late 70’s Earth period is what gets most of the attention here as we see how Dante continues to do his rounds for protection within the city, which is in rough shape and definitely the view of what a hell of a place New York City was at the time. Victor is still showing his real skill when it comes to electronics, but it’s his imprinting that has him building something he’s not sure of as the images in his head are practically demanding that they be let out. There’s some nice pieces to this as it goes on and it feels like we get a good handle on both Dante and Victor more, especially with how Dante really does care for the kid and wants to make sure he’s safe, especially since it plays against the more violent backdrop going on with the alien creature that’s out there killing a lot of people in a gruesome fashion. Having the Alien nod the previous time around was cute, even if it was violent, but here it just takes on a comical and oppressively dark tone at the same time as the body count grows.
While Dante and Victor are surviving all of this, we see events on the Dreadnaught Tiger progressing as well as Klavus has gone the distance to figure out a way to get to Earth and reach the Victory clone there. Having his essence thrown across space and time to get there is intriguing, especially when we see him take over Dante in that period in order to save Victor from what’s going on and bring him back to where they need him. It’s convoluted and surreal in its presentation, but damn if there’s some real appeal to seeing a kind of 60’s wonky representation of it all come to life in this particular way. That all makes for some really violent material as Klavus as Dante saves the day by dealing with the creature, but it fits with the approach that he’d take. Unfortunately, any real exploration of it is cut short by shifting to the other clone and his continued journey in the Kel-Ray system where he’s further establishing his presence. That’s even more chaotic than the earth based material, leaving me really unsure of what it is they’re intending to do here.
In Summary:
Like the last few issues, I really don’t know what to make of all this. It has some beautiful and fantastic moments with its structure and design with the artwork and coloring, but then it gets all murky and impossible to figure out who or what is going on at the time. The larger narrative is fine and works well, is easy to understand, but when it gets down to the actual execution, dialogue and display of it, it feels like it’s just a mess upon a mess with the best of intentions. The time spent in the late 70’s period here is definitely a treat in its own way and it’s fun seeing the twist of it all come into play with Klavus, but it’s hard to really rally behind this in general with what it’s doing.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 11th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
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