Huck #5

Huck, Issue #5 sees Huck and his mother, Anna, being held captive in Science City 33, a secret metropolis in the former Soviet Union.  This is indeed a dark turn of events for the formerly lighthearted series.  The dialogue in this issue is sparse, but the magic is still there.  Huck is absolutely one of my favorite characters in comics today.  It would be easy to compare him to other Image Comics characters, but really, he could be on the level of an Iron Man or a Spider-Man.  I just hope that in 20 years, Huck is still around.  He has the potential to be something extraordinary.

Rafael Albuquerque continues to impress with this series as the illustrator.  The characters' faces are extremely expressive, and the interplay between the characters works.  XV and XVI, the two androids are a little less emotive, but they're human in their own way.  The highlight as far as the artwork for me is the view of Science City 33.  It is a two-page spread on page 2 and page 3 with a lot of snow and a lot of green-gray but a little orange that totally sets everything off.   Dave McCaig's coordinated colors, particularly the oranges and green-grays, present a unified color scheme throughout the issue.

This is really a title that gains a lot on a second reading, which I don't usually do.  Blambot's Nate Piekos, the letterer, has a style that I like, with horizontal lines turned a little bit upward and emphasized words in both bold and italic.  I bought the variant cover this month; I have all five, I think.  The theme for this month is Ghostbusters, and well, you can see the cover for yourself, above.

I usually don't read too much of the back material in comics - I scan the letters and sometimes read the bonus comics - but the editorial announcing the Chrononaut sequel caught my eye.  I bought the trade paperback version of Chrononaut when it came out, and I've been awaiting a new issue ever since.  Also new by Mark Millar is Empress, Issue #1, which comes out in three weeks.  On top of that is more Jupiter's Circle.  I still have to read that one.