![]() ![]() Extending the length allows the team to pace the story just a tiny bit differently, opening up a few pages for quieter and more subtle character work and plotting. Each issue has story beats and damn near close to a three-act structure. Rucka and Lark being such a veteran creative team means each issue of Lazarus to date has tread that rarefied ground in which the individual chapters feel both episodic and part of a larger narrative. So, what then of the new format? Surely, it must have changed something. ![]() It’s as compulsive readable and utterly immersive as all that’s come before it. Nothing is ever contrived, not even a bit, and Lazarus Risen #1 is no exception. This is the most fully-formed comic on the market-bar none-and as a result it often feels like the creative team is a conduit for the truth of this plot. Rucka and Lark are a skilled and veteran team that have worked together for years, and it shows. The quality in Lazarus never wavers, not even a little bit. Let me start this review (three paragraphs in, streamlined I am not) by noting that the story, artwork, plot, and characters are just as strong as ever. The reason this issue gets the new #1 treatment is that the book is back with a new format: quarterly releases that clock in at an extended length. This is all a means of saying that even though Lazarus: Risen #1 is a a new #1 issue, it’s set in a thoroughly explored world during what seems like not-quite the midway point of a long story. All told, that’s about 34 incredible issues of content, plus some other supplemental material with more information that help support a Lazarus RPG. To date, there have been 28 issues of Lazarus in the main series, plus a six-issue auxiliary series titled Lazarus: X+66, which fills in the gaps of side characters and the story’s broader world over the course of a 12-month period. All in all, this is one of the smartest and most compulsively readable comics on the market, a must-read for any fan of the medium. The world is so well-built, the characters compelling and complex, the dilemmas they face suspenseful. I recently re-read the entire series, and once I got about mid-way through the second volume, I almost literally could not put it down. ![]() By Zack Quaintance - I really don’t think it’s possible to heap enough praise atop writer Greg Rucka and artist Michael Lark’s immersive dystopian near-future comic epic, Lazarus. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |