Writer/Artist: Mark Oakley (M'Oak)
Here's what I thought...
I really enjoyed this issue. Lots of forward movement, lots of magical stuff revealed, a connection firmly established between the Rubel story and the Heath story, and a terrific and very needed conversation at last between Heath and her mentor, Quinton.
Now that readers know Quinton isn't loony and really does understand things magical, we can pretty much take as fact the revelations that he imparts to Heath, including the history of Soracia (whom he also calls Sally) and the fact that Heath is the reincarnation of Sally's sister. In fact, given the recap that Heath gives the young(-looking) wizard this is probably a great issue for new readers who want to see what this book's all about. I love what M'Oak does visually here as well-- many of the panel borders are curved or circled, giving the impression of being trapped in a narrow, winding place, as Quinton is (his struggles to escape his cell are quite cute too!), then opening up more as the revelations start flying fast.
Heath's reluctance to accept her destiny is perfect and classic, and she's going to make a great hero. But what really floored me was Quinton's insistence that she NOT battle Soracia/Sally, that grave consequences would follow were the sisters to fight. Seems to me the only way out of the morass is through redemption, but we'll see. Only one full-text-with- illo page this timke, out, followed by two mostly captionless pages of Heath escaping into the Water Barrel of Time (well, that's what *I* call it, at least) just as the Shadow Lady arrives, and emerging presumably in Rubel's era...
But we'll have to wait for the continuation of that (maddening how M'Oak always seems to end things just when we're getting to the best part, which speaks to his excellent sense of cliffhanger storytelling), because Mark presents us with a charming 3-page story that never made it into MYTHOGRAPHY (a terrific anthology, do look for it), *AND* the prequel to Tara Jenkins' upcoming series GALAXION, for which I'm so psyched I can hardly stand it. Tara's got a lovely style, a good feel for facial expression and dramatic body language, and it's always great to see a female general! I've read the first two issues of the series in minicomic form, and it's a great little character-oriented sf saga so far, which I highly recommend - yay Tara!
So, what did y'all think?
- Elayne
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This review copyright Elayne Wechsler-Chaput 1997
Reprinted here by permission