COMIC BOOK REVIEW: The Owl #3
The pace picks up as the curtain draws near in Dynamite Entertainment‘s The Owl #3. In this issue, The Owl tries once more to save the new Owl Girl who has proven to be ruthless, dangerous and deadly, while at the same time danger looms over their heads as two gang leaders compete for turf in their beloved city.
The Owl confronts Owl Girl, trying to persuade her to choose the better path, and prevent her from falling into greater darkness. Two gang leaders competing for territory try to pull in and get the help of Owl Girl, with one seeking to enlist the girl’s aid by convincing her to choose the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, there’s an assassin ordered to take the head of the female vigilante, plunging our heroes into one tag team battle on the rooftops.
After this issue, there’s just one story left for Owl and J.T.Krul definitely made sure that things would take things up a notch in #3 before we hit the conclusion. When I started reading The Owl back in #1, the pace’s slow as hell and it looked like there’s a lot to establish before even thinking of proceeding with the story. Back then I thought it’ll just be about the hero trying to find a place in the modern world. It seemed obvious that what an out-of-time hero has to face would be how to cope with new villains and challenges but that’s not what really happened. Instead, the Owl has to come into terms with the fact that the city and its people have moved on without him, while at the same time try to save Owl Girl’s life and stop her from becoming something that she would regret later on.
I’d commend Heubert Khan Michael here for his art. But unlike the previous issues where it was the movements and action that took the spotlight, in #3 it’s his portrayal of human emotions that takes the cake, while keeping the butt-kicking scenes at the same level. Normally I would focus on the work done on those action scenes, where The Owl displays his powers or whenever the heroes leap to dodge a bullet or an explosion. However, in this issue, what caught my interest is the attention paid to the emotions of other characters, zooming in on facial expressions then out to highlight the action. Paired up with Vinicius Andrade‘s colors, this issue’s still popping with the same vibrant and bright neon we’ve seen in the first and second book. The Owl’s special abilities really pop out and I swear the pages could work if they were rendered in 3d.
Thank goodness everything picked up in this issue, making up for the past two sluggish issues. This one’s definitely the most action-packed issue we’ve seen from Krul, where the story’s set-up for a grand conclusion. Well I sure do hope the last one would respond the expectations as there’s still some things remained unanswered and plus the question of how to wrap things up.
Review Score:
7.8/10
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