With this issue of Dark Horse’s Resident Alien, the mini-series comes to a close.
Issue 4 continues the New York (as per the mini-series title ” An Alien in New York) adventure and encounters of Harry Vanderspeigle, or ‘the alien’ as we know him. Invisible alien to all but a very few humans, “Harry” is looking for a way to return to his home planet.
With script and art by series creators Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, the original creative team is bringing us to the end of their current story arc.
Previous issues have held my interest and have impressed me. The relatively low key presentation of the story is refreshing. This is not a comic full of head punching and laser rifle battles; it is more cerebral in tone and the colour palette is likewise subdued. We get into the characters’ heads, whether they have pointy ears or not. It’s a sober, quietly compelling work. Or at least until issue 4!
As the story concludes in New York city, I find myself growing bored. There is a lot of standing around going on. People slowly telling each other stories about other people. How ironic: we pick up a comic to read a story, yet we read a story about someone telling someone else a story instead. Then, when the dramatic situations resolve themselves to a certain extent, and we are caught in the “what now, the comic is not finished yet” moment, it all feels strangely unsatisfying. More pages of people standing around, saying things. Yikes.
Thankfully, the pace picks up again, and it’s back to a more compelling dramatic swing of events, just in time for us to tune in Resident Alien series six, sometime in the future.
Dark Horse, Resident Alien (An Alien in New York) #4. $3.99 for 24 pages of content. Not rated, assume Teen
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