This past week, I did something I thought I’d never do. I gave a book (The Luna Brothers’ final issue to The Sword) a perfect score. What followed was a little criticism (of my critique!), with some pointing out that the book didn’t deserve a perfect score, but instead should have gotten a score much lower (while still being a buy.) So I feel the need to break down my score and hopefully shed some light on the subject. Follow the cut for more. Unless you plan on reading it, in that case, there are MASSIVE spoilers.
What this is is basically an extended review (or rather, re-review):
The Luna’s art is nothing if not consistent. But here they found a way to make what amounts to a blank page absolutely gorgeous, and moving the story better than if it had contained anything at all. The storytelling as told through the art was remarkable, and one of the best I had ever seen. It was effortless to be immersed into the story, and by the end I was an absolute wreck.
The Twist:
There was a killer twist in the middle of the book, where Phaistos takes the sword and plunges it into his own heart, ending a fight between Dara and himself before it ever began. At first you can comprehend what happened. Why would they write this character as taking himself out when they made it seem like he would be the big bad?
I’ll tell you why. Hell, HE tells you why. Before The Sword was constructed, he was arrogant and greedy, impatient and not a good person at all. But when he was trapped at the core of the Earth, he learned that he needed to learn how to not be that person anymore, and had to learn things like patience and humility. Something that he also realized his siblings lacked, and would never learn. So it was time for him to end their existence on this planet and beyond. And seeing as how he had succeeded, he didn’t need to live any longer because, you guessed it; he didn’t feel he had a place in this world anymore. This book was about the redemption of Phaistos through and through.
Closure:
Poor Dara Brighton. She had been through a figurative Hell trying to put down the godlings that murdered her family in retribution for thousands of years of her father keeping them in their place. Now that all of her enemies have been defeated, and there was no one really to keep HER in check, what did she do? She gave the sword up, tossing it to bottom of an active volcano, effectively keeping it from anyone else for all of eternity.
After she tosses the sword, you look at her as she relives all of the wounds she sustained while battling her family’s murderers. The agony presented on the page was nearly something I couldn’t handle because the pain Dara was going through after all her injuries reopened. Here she is, succumbing to her own mortality, because the Sword was no longer there to protect her.
This not only made sure there would never be a sequel but the final scenes where she is
reunited with her family, exactly the opposite of what Phaistos described as Hell. He lives for hundreds of years alone; she’ll be with her family. It was a beautiful dichotomy that was as touching as it was final.
Emotional connectivity:
Phaistos had been to Hell. He didn’t die, and he didn’t meet the Devil, but when he was at the core of the Earth, he was alone. He had no contact with anything for nearly 2,000 years. At the beginning of the book, you don’t think much of it. You think “oh, he’s just whining about his suffering.” But then at the end, when Dara, who we can conclude passed away from her injuries several of them mortal wounds from which there was no coming back (I mean, a jaw that was ripped off, along with a hand that was severed in battle.) It was some gnarly stuff indeed.
If this had just been a final issue to a book, I probably wouldn’t have given it a perfect score, to be quite honest. But this book addressed every single plot thread it brought up, leaving a perfectly woven tapestry also called a comic book. There was a definite beginning, middle, and end, and it was one that did not spare our feelings one bit.
Bravo, Jonathan and Joshua. Bravo
