Reviews»Comic Books»Blackout #3
blackout3
Kareem Ali 2.5

Blackout #3

 

  • The good

    King Tiger story continues to be excellent

  • The bad

    Story is progressing at a snail's pace with zero answers given once again regarding the origins of the suit or Scott's search for his benefactor.

  • The ugly

    • Blackout #3 opens up with Scott trapped in the shadow dimension after the power in his suit is completely drained and he has no way to communicate with Ash. He panics since he doesn’t know how the suit works and the dimension is dark, silent and cold, and no one would ever find his body in it. He then remembers he has Ash’s phone with a full charge but when he attempts to make a call its power goes out as well. However that’s a good thing because his suit siphoned the power from the phone giving it enough for one more portal for him to escape. Of course he’s relieved, and he now he has a little understanding of how the suit works with him believing he ran out of power because they were in the middle of the desert with no other power sources to drain. Despite Ash’s attempts to get him to just walk away, Scott explains that he has to go back to Mechatronics to get answers. But with the new regime at Mechatronics armed with giant robots, can Scott contend with them and get the answers he desperately needs?

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    I’ve been disappointed with this series so far as there’s been nothing for me to feel invested in whether it’s the characters, their motivations or even the direction of the story because it hasn’t gone anywhere. And the suit has been unimpressive because Scott doesn’t know how it works fully nor have its origins been revealed to make it even seem intriguing. The start of this issue sort to address at least some of the questions of how the suit works with Scott being trapped, and the fact that it drains other power sources to use as its own couldn’t even be considered mildly interesting because of how it’s handled. With every issue being shorter than the usual length of a comic book issue it makes no sense that the only thing revealed this entire issue is that the suit basically runs on batteries. There are more creative ways that could’ve been explained but even a simple mention of that fact would have been suffice because Ms. Luca, one of Mechatronics’ employees resigned and knows a lot more about the suit than Scott. Of course she wouldn’t be allowed to leave so easily and this sets off a confrontation between Scott and Mechatronics as he stumbles on to the scene and decides to take action, which is slightly entertaining but not enough to ignore all the problems with this series so far. If you’re already invested in this series due to the events that took place prior to issue #1 then this issue might be enjoyable for you but since I started with issue #1 I haven’t found anything to be engrossing about the story.

    And I highly doubt the intention behind putting King Tiger at the end of these lackluster issues was to make it more appealing but its 6 pages have more story and character development than all 3 issues of Blackout. The use of the mystical arts provides some action as the demon’s intentions are revealed in such a clear way that it’s easy to get wrapped up in the story. And with every issue I wish even more that the two places in the issue were reversed with King Tiger being the main story and Blackout being the addition at the end.

     

    SUMMARY

    Blackout #3 would be at best a decent issue if it was the second one but considering the length of all the issues, enough just doesn’t happen to make the overall series feel entertaining or engrossing. Hopefully next issue some series answers will be given but with the way this issue concluded I have very low expectations of that actually happening. Unlike King Tiger, which is excellent once again and has me anxious to see what happens next, Blackout just leaves me feeling left in the dark hoping that some story development will be the spark necessary to escape from its cold embrace.

     

    Release Date: 6/4/14

    Writer: Frank Barbiere, Randy Stradley

    Artist: Colin Lorimer, Doug Wheatley

  • Rating ( 5.25 )
  • Total score 5.3

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