Shadowhawk Reviews @ImageComics Lazarus #5

Here is today's Guest Review by Abhinav Jain from Shadowhawk's Shade, The Founding Fields, and Just Beyond Infinity, for Image Comics' Lazarus #5. I have also added my rating after each review. If you have any questions about my rating or want to discuss anything just leave me a comment.

See the Review Rating Overview page for more information on how I rate each comic.

Lazarus #5 - Lift, Part One

NEW STORY ARC!

“LIFT,” Part One

Following Jonah’s betrayal, Forever is beginning to question the nature of family, in particular her own. Waste from all over the Carlyle domain travel to Denver in hopes of improving their lives.

Preview

Forever

As far as me experimenting with non-superhero comics is concerned, Image has been my go-to publisher of choice. They have an incredible diverse array of books out right now and they continue to add more each month. One of the new properties they added this year is Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s Lazarus, a post-apocalyptic series featuring a female protagonist. With its 4-issue first arc, the creators set up a really great setting with some great characters and despite the extra one-month break in-between the last issue and the new one, my interest in the series has not dimmed at all.

The first arc ended rather explosively, with quite a few things going down and the new issue picks up where #4 left off so that we see what kind of a fallout those events have had and how the characters themselves have changed and adapted to suit the new status quo. Apart from everything else, Rucka and Lark take us back in to the past with a great flashback, and we get to see even more of the world as it has come to be. Particularly, we see what kind of events have shaped Forever as she is. And that’s a huge part of the fun of the new issue.

There’s a certain simplicity to this story that I really like. Whether we are talking about the flashback to Eve’s childhood and her jerk of a patronising arrogant father or her run-in with some more enemy soldiers or interacting with her sister Johanna, things are easy to follow and thus simplistic, but there are always layers within layers. The key theme of this issue is the notion of family and with that in account, all the different scenes in the issue come together to tell a much larger story, emphasising the value and worth of a family. And through it all Rucka weaves in some great characterisation for the protagonist Eve and her supporting cast while Lark delivers on some great visuals.

With the start of the near arc, we also get to meet some new characters and with these Rucka takes a step back and focuses on the “normal” people of the setting, the everyday people that is, the ones who lack any value to their lives, as determined by the Families. It states in the credits page of this issue that the current story deals with the “Lift” the process by which these ordinary people can join those who matter, and can finally have a life where they don’t get broken backs every single day, day after day.

Read the rest of Shadowhawk's review on Here

Images Unplugged Rating

Cover & Solicit - 3
Art, Colors & Inking - 3
Layout & Flow - 4
Story - 5
Verdict - 4 (8/10) - (Buy Lazarus) SAVE 10%

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Shadowhawk is a blogger at http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/, senior reviewer for The Founding Fields book blog, a contributor to the Just Beyond Infinity mixed-content blog and a comic book reviewer at Comic Vine. The use of these reviews has been authorized by the original author.