Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: N/A
Story by: Dan Jolley
Penciled by: E.J. Su & Clint Hilinski
Colored by: David Messina
Frederica Manfredi
Barbara Bargiggia
Lettered by: Dreamer Design
Editor: Mark Powers
Publisher: Devil’s Due
You all know the drill. Form blazing sword! Roe-Beast dead! Celebrate! Drink your juicebox, take a nap. That was the standard order of action for most kids in the mid-80’s who watched Voltron. Usually after Voltron though, you could go find He-Man, or Go-Bots, or Transformers, or Captain ‘N’, or M.A.S.K., or Duck Tales, or… I could do this for paragraphs, as I was raised by my television set.
The cartoon Voltron and the comic book Voltron have one very amazing thing separating them. When I watch the show now, I feel empty, as if I was cheated week after week. This is one of those books that is just a complete guilty pleasure, and is enjoyable too. They have taken those five characters, each of which were standard hero types, and given them depth as well as motivation.
It’s not the greatest book ever written, but it is a completely enjoyable trip.
Story!
Okay, they have gotten us through the initial finding of the lions, and even have introduced Voltron 2 (the less cool spaceship one), and are now heading us completely into new terrain. Sven is a traitor!
Sadly, this book doesn’t do extremely well at catching you up on everything that’s gone on so far, and I really don’t want to spend the whole time setting it up. All you need to know if you haven’t picked up an issue of Voltron is that one of the good guys (Sven) has just jumped over to the other side, and this is bad.
Now, where this book is shining is the fact that all of your characters are getting full time to explain themselves. Prince Lothor is just a great villain, and where he was always the brash more sinister version of his father in the cartoon – here we see that there is a reason for it. His father (the King) is a mean S.O.B., and Lothor has just got to be that much more devilishly sneaky to try and stay ahead of him.
My only concern is that the book is almost moving a little too far past the story of the five guys and their lions. The science and politics of this issue started to butt into my fun time. Voltron is a fun fantasy-sci-fi story, and whereas the techno-babble is needed in some cases, it does in fact get on your nerves after a bit.
Art!
I don’t think there has been an issue of this book that didn’t in some way focus on the big mega Voltron robot. I could be wrong, but in this one it is ‘Voltron in Asteroids’ which appears nowhere in the book. It’s a great eye-catching picture, but in no way reflective of the interior.
The interior art is strong, as most of the Devil’s Due books are. It’s simple and animated and feels as if you are watching just another scene from a cartoon they never put on TV. I wouldn’t want it to look like anything else. It’s definitely not as crisp and manga influenced as the first arc was, but it’s a different take on the characters.
For as much as it was a bit of a filler page, there is a shot of what it looks like through a viewscreen when Voltron is about to eat your ship. Completely unnecessary, but pretty amusing if you like that big Japanese robot sort of thing. Which I do.
Overall
The plot is moving right along, with all of the little chess pieces being put into motion. All of your old cartoon favorites are here, and not all of them have shown what they are made of either. These guys could pump out Voltron stories for a very long time with the mythos they’ve recreated. Hopefully they will do it right, and not speed it up like the fate that is befalling Transformers.
