Review: Archer & Armstrong #12
Creative Team:
Writer: Fred Van Lente
Penciler: Pere Perez
Color Artist: David Baron
Letterer: Simon Bowland
The Issue:
Nothing is ever easy for Archer and Armstrong. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that their attempt to discover more about Archer’s origins would lead them to the Faraway. What’s the Faraway? A strange, mysterious, and artificial place that exists outside of time. They run into everything from dinosaurs, Ambrose Bierce, Roanoke Indians, and General Redacted and his squadron of alien fighter pilots.
Mary-Maria Archer, Archer’s foster sister and love of his live, possessed by her parents and finds herself side by side with Armstrong and the Roanokes in their battle against the aliens. Their unconventional fighting style manages to defeat General Redacted’s army. After showing his raw strength Mary-Maria finds herself strangely attracted to him.
Elsewhere Archer is confronted by a group of Sages who see him as a prophet. They tell him of the impact he has on the future. He is not a figure to be worshipped, but instead “Charles Darwin of the Soul.” They tell him he would go on to preach the word of not intervening. To them it wasn’t as much actions of good or evil but the flaws in the very logic of either. When Archer sees a need to help his friend they advise him not to but they refuse to stop him.
Archer sees a giant ball and is told that it contains the person who caused the first Cataclysm and will eventually cause the last one. With the push of a button it opens and out comes Armstrong’s brother Ivar Anni-Padda who had been trapped in the time stream forever. Looking to gain an advantage versus General Redacted Archer, Ivar Anni-Padda and Ambrose Bierce go on the search for someone that could provide an airplane to wage battle.
What I Liked:
Valiant Comics has a roster of good titles. They have a lot to be proud of for being a company that is a little over a year into their relaunch. Out of their titles the only one that aspires to truly be great is Archer & Armstrong. What sets this book apart is how Fred Van Lente gives us a host of well fleshed out characters and is willing to give us an adventure that doesn’t simply take us from point A to B. Instead what this book does is takes us on a circuitous route around the entire universe.
Archer and Armstrong have a friendship that we saw grow in these very pages. It makes sense. There are frustrations, there are clashes, and there are things that they just make due with. In some of the other books they let the story get in the way of the character development. What is strange about that is despite this book being character driven it also features much more story than the other books. A lot of that has to point to how strong a writer Fred Van Lente is.
If I had to pick one thing, above all else, that I loved it would be the reveal of Ivar Anni-Padda and the following scenes. Throughout the series you can tell that Van Lente loves dropping Easter eggs about the rest of the universe and he does it here. There are mentions of Bloodshot amongst others that Ivar tells Archer about, but Archer is simply confused.
It is hard to talk about what Fred Van Lente does and not mention the work of Pere Perez. It is one of those perfect marriages of writer and artist. I really get a kick out of seeing the facial expressions he gives the characters. Van Lente writers the scene and you can read the rest right off the images. I would really love to see the layouts of the script done for this to really get a handle of how much Perez brings on his own.
What I Didn’t Like:
This was just as strong as last week’s Quantum and Woody. So that means I can’t really find much to nitpick. I’m a giant fan of this series and feel that it is one of the best ongoing titles in all of comics. When it is running on all cylinders I have no real complaints to file. Which is absolutely a rarity for me.
Grade:
Coatesvillain
Just a guy who was into this nerd stuff before it's popular. Now that is I'm just happy I have people to talk about it with.
