Two individuals, sworn enemies, end up on a deserted planet together, their mangled spaceships in disarray.
Darak and Solila’s lives depend on their being able to put their many differences aside in order to survive. But the chasm of conflicts runs deep between them. From Image, Void Rivals continues with the second issue, a time for some back story! Robert Kirkman invests the first half of issue two setting the stage: who are these rivals, and how did they arrive in this predicament? In a really solid blend of writing and visuals, the story clicks back and forth between Darak’s experiences and Solila’s.
Artist Lorenzo De Felici maintains a cool, clear rendering style, allowing the characters space within the panels, emphasizing their ’spacial isolation’ amidst the stars, in their thoughts, in their respective cultures. The gestures are clear and brisk, the expressions ample without hyperbole. Colourist Matheus Lopes shows similar restraint, desaturating the palette, lowering the highlights and shadows, so we have characters surrounded by black space, floating through their environments.
The flow of the issue is not all clinical and antiseptic, however, as highly emotional content pokes through the sterile landscape. There is real tension between these rivals in the void. Crisp, stately, and clean lettering by Rus Wooton.
Image, Void Rivals #1, $3.99 for 20 pages of content.
Newsdesk