“Scout’s Honor” #3 pits Kit against Dez, against herself and against the not-so-unshakeable moral core of the Scouts. Warning: spoilers ahead.
Cover by Andy Clarke & José Villarrubia
Written by David Pepose
Illustrated by Luca Casalanguida
Colored by Matt Milla
Lettered by Carlos M. Mangual Forced to confront her suspicions about Ranger Scout society, Kit undertakes the grueling Eagle’s Guard Trials on her quest for the truth – but standing in her path is Dez, the Scoutmaster’s son and her oldest friend. And Dez is not going to let this badge of honor go without a fight…
“Scout’s Honor” #3 follows Kit as she undergoes the brutal Trials of the Eagle immediately after her father’s death. She’s got something to prove, and a bigger mystery to uncover than even she realizes.
Pepose is adept at merging the mundane and the fantastic, and “Scout’s Honor” is a good example of the Scouts taken to their somewhat logical extreme. Where Matt Kindt situates the recent “Black Badge” in the here and now, Pepose chooses a nuclear apocalypse and a bit of a philosophical disconnect thanks to said nukes to situate Kit in the middle of a zealous – and corrupt – civilization based on a military experiment gone wrong. Kit has to navigate hiding her gender identity, her fraying friendship with Dez, her father’s death and a revelation that’ll shake the foundations of her cobbled-together society. Kit’s cut from the strong female protagonist cloth we know and, frankly, see too often these days, but there are extra touches here to puncture the stereotype and offer us something more compelling.
Pepose crafts an engaging script that packs a lot of detail and plot points in between the action, and issue #3 in particular feels a bit cluttered. The issue’s split between the trials and Kit’s investigation into the Scouts afterward, and the latter third of the book feels tacked on because we don’t take a beat between her father’s death and the immediate callback of the third trial. That event is also very short, as is the fight between Kit and Dez, and we’re immediately whisked off to the final reveal when we should spend another page or two in each discrete moment. Because we’re moved along so fast, none of these significant events have enough time to sink in, and they can occasionally feel shorthanded or over-written as a result. The kiss in the previous issue feels swept away, though Pepose and Casalanguida reference it in a quick flashback panel early on in this issue. It’s not a stand-out detail to mourn, per se, but it’s a single example of many moments that the team could explore if we had more space.
The good news is that the emotional content is present in both the script and the art, and “Scout’s Honor” doesn’t feel hollow. Kit is a sympathetic protagonist, and a lot of that is thanks to Casalanguida’s good command of evocative detail. There’s good physical action as well, and we never lose sight of the ragged edges of this world thanks to Casalanguida’s carefully placed background details. Milla complements some of Casalanguida’s inky shading with interesting color gradients, as in the scene where Dez confronts Kit about the trials. The heavy blacks and dim light draw out the emotional tension and evoke grim expectations.
On the page turn we’re treated to spectral “suicide hornets” with ragged black outlines and eerie green eyes attacking Kit and Dez on a rubble-strewn landscape that’s recognizable but impressionistic and effective. Building outlines and windows bleed into Milla’s gradient terracotta browns, blue and green clouds mushroom out of the grounded haze and Kit and Dez are situated almost back-to-back, but on subtly different planes as they battle each other and the hornets. Casalanguida and Milla demonstrate this seamless quality a few more times in this issue – Kit coming out of the black well into the ominous blue and black night, and the intentional form breakdown during Kit and Dez’s final fight – and “Scout’s Honor” clinches the aesthetic it needs to succeed as a comic.
Mangual chooses a font that’s a bit bouncier than we might expect, but there are nice slashy Ns and Us, and the Os are slightly smaller than the rest of the letters to give the text some grit. The balloons have a nice stroke that becomes more uneven during moments of uncertainty or physical strain, and sound effects blend seamlessly if we want them to but feature if we’re looking for that extra flair. The final panel of Kit and Dez’s fight features a primal yell from Kit that’s a bit too smooth around the edges, especially when compared to the scratchier “Whakk” and “Thud” on the same page, but it’s a small detail.
Overall, Pepose, Casalanguida, Milla and Mangual do good, if quick, work in “Scout’s Honor” to pack in plot details, intrigue and enough challenges for Kit to feel alive as a protagonist. Both Dez and Kit are relatable in their individual struggles and their now-fraught relationship. Though the pace is too fast sometimes, Pepose directs our attention to where it needs to be: on Kit and her story, not the trappings and surface details of the world. We learn just as much as we need to flesh everything out, and we don’t waste time waxing poetic about tech or days past when there are immediate problems and mysteries to unravel.
Final Verdict: 7.5/10 – “Scout’s Honor” #3 packs in a bit too much plot to let us linger, but focuses on character growth when it matters most.
