Eternal Warrior #4

by kanchilr1 on December 18, 2013

Writing Greg Pak Art Trevor Hairsine and Diego Bernard

 

Introduction

 

Even with the finer points of Greg Pak’s writing, it is hard to latch on the Eternal Warrior at times. The first couple of issues have been an interesting enough, but then the future storyline was teased, which made it more difficult to invest interest in the hero. The Futureverse tale coming up has a vast potential to strive for greatness instead of the mediocrity that was slung towards readers in the previous installments to this title. The Eternal Warrior’s daughter has been interesting in some instances, but not developed well enough to be a key plot point for several issues down the road. Hopefully, the attention will shift soon, or there will be more substantial plot offered to reader. It shocks me to no end  at how much artist Trevor Hairsine has been cleaning up his comics in the past few issues of this title. Last issue seemed rushed, and was a bit of a disappointment. His overall contributions to the series have been very positive.

 

Writing

 

A flashback sequence towards the beginning of the tale is handled with the utmost care, and adds some development for Mitu and Xaran. Unfortunately, it does not shown any new layers, as it hits on beats that readers are already aware of. The action sequence in the middle is standard fare that does not build enough excitement or wait for readers to latch onto anything. The penciller swap in the middle of this issue does not serve the storytelling at hand, it feels like a sloppy transition. After reading the final pages of this initial storyline, the book felt like it was treading ground in order to get to the future storyline coming up. Unfortunately, when continuity is so tight in places like Valiant, there is bound to be some useless filler material. These four issues of Eternal Warrior took the idea of compression to a whole new level, featuring nothing even remotely interesting for issues.

 

Art

 

In this installment, Hairsine looks less refined on the back of Diego Bernard. Bernard delivers some truly gorgeous pencils that shine with polish and delight. As Hairsine almost looks like he is once again struggling to keep the pace. Fortunately, Bernard is jumping onto next issue completely by himself. This could be fascinating to observe taken by himself on the interior pages of a full issue. Colors by Guy Major shift between two different color palettes that are quite interesting to look at in the context of this issue. Dave Sharpe handles the war scenes with an added layer of care through some nice lettering techniques. This is some of the best work on the title by Hairsine, as his pencils mesh well with the subject matter by which he is creating. Bernard is in a completely different league, as he can tackle both talking heads and fight scenes with ease.

 

Conclusion


This tale is ultimately not worth the time of any modern reader. More interesting things are happening elsewhere in Valiant Universe, or in other books by Greg Pak. It is hard to recommend the issue at hand to anyone but those desperate for some new art by the amazing up and comer known as Diego Bernard.

 

Our Score:

6/10

A Look Inside