Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Rod Reis

Price: $3.99

Release Date: January 8th, 2020

Reviewer: Archer of the Asylum

Boy, oh boy is this a difficult thing to write. I both liked and disliked New Mutants #5. Jonathan Hickman’s writing was great, really it was. The retro-futuristic tone of Rod Reis’s set pieces were beautiful in their splendor. But that narrator though… he was annoying, personally.

And that’s fine, it really is, some of the best narrators in stories are annoying but it does kind of make the whole book flow a little less smoothly. The dialogue is quick, it’s snappy, there’s a high school tone to it all that had me chuckling, especially at some of the innuendos. It’s refreshing to read younger characters being, well…. young. Not just short grown-ups or oversized toddlers. There is a real nuance to the characters that makes them likable.

The artwork helps with that, but not in the ways you think. Reis’s vision conjures up work in a similar vein to the styling of Alex Ross. You don’t just look at the expression drawn on the character, you take on the body language, the lighting and color choices of the panel, the general unpleasantness of the mercenaries dispatched to murder this motley crew of mutants as they hurtle ever onward through stargates in deep space… oooh that narrator though.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This book is enjoyable. I won’t lie and say the narrator made it unreadable, he didn’t. I was smiling and chuckling for most of the books. The artwork is beautiful, it is, its retro-futuristic with just enough rejected Star Wars concept art to keep it interesting and together with the overall energy of the cast and the dialogue it works, even if the narrator and the cheap cliff-hanger did grate the nerves a little.

6.5/10