At
issue three, the Gangsters & Goliaths
mini-series has officially reached its halfway mark
of its five issue run. Author John Layman keeps
up the interest in this comic, continuing to craft
a pretty original monster story, while once again
the art is the comic's major drawback.
In terms of plot, the issue opens with an attack
by King Ghidorah that happened twenty years ago.
A young Makato Sato is trying to protect a crowd
by ordering them away from the monster, while he
comes into conflict with his wife, taking priority
for his job over his family. Back to modern day,
Sato warns one of his sons of his actions, of using
Mothra to attack the Takahashi crime syndicate,
and that they will likely seek revenge. Sato, meanwhile,
attempts to coax the Elias into letting Mothra finish
off the syndicate; however, Godzilla arrives to
prove the Elias right about the shift in "balance"
while the crime syndicate has discovered the detective's
location.
Layman's story has hit full gear here, producing
mostly stellar results. To start off with the downside,
Sato has been revealed to not be a loose cannon
afterall or the dark anti-hero he seemed earlier.
The Elias, effectively, call his bluff and his inability
to hurt innocents. In a way, this works with the
character development seen in this issue and his
extreme dedication to his service as a law enforcer,
even at the expense of his family. However, it takes
the edge off Sato and in many ways makes the story
far more predictable. Despite some lost potential,
the story is still pretty solid with excellent pacing.
Layman's style of jumping to flashbacks from the
present feels very well constructed and thought
out. In effect, he's making the most of the comic
medium to tell a story quickly with a lot of detail.
Sato's son, who is introducted and has his relationship
with his father developed, is already starting to
play an important part by the issue's end and will
likely be a key figuring going forward.
This comic also ramps up the monster angle, although
without the impact that Mothra had in issue #2.
Her actions here are all seen briefly in flashback,
while King Ghidorah's role at the start could have
been interchangeable with just about any kaiju.
Godzilla does make a nice appearance toward the
end though, making his real first impact in the
series so far.
In relation to the monsters, although the human
cast suffers far more, the drawback of this issue
is the art by Alberto Ponticelli. His style is distinct
and loose, to be fair, but sadly suffers too much
of the latter. The human characters in particular
change in appearance dramatically from panel to
panel, to the point where one is thankful for their
clothes to help tell them apart. Colorist Jay Fotos
doesn't help matters either, getting sloppy with
a character bleeding from the face in one panel
and then clean the next, or white bandages being
colored a flesh tone by accident. While he did okay
with the other issues, his work here feels rushed
and a little sloppy, outside of some excellent work
in crafting King Ghidorah's gravity bolts at the
start.
As for the covers, there is one by Dan Brereton
of Godzilla and another by Alberto Ponticelli of
Sato, his son and Mothra. Both are decent, but as
far as covers go neither packs that punch that a
good cover should. Ponticelli's had potential, but
the strange angle of Mothra's wing and the odd placement
of the boat and cars make it seem more like a metaphor
for the issue's contents rather than an action scene.
Overall, its not as solid as the first two, but
then halfway points rarely are in a mini-series.
It does a good job of developing the cast more and
still maintains the reader's interest for the next
issue. Layman is proving that he is more than up
for the task of infusing some creativity in a genre
often plagued with feeling very similar. Now if
only the art would match the writing quality...
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