Well the War Monger storyline finally comes to a close. I do hate to say it, but this has been one of the weaker storylines to brace the pages of Unity. Aside from how annoying War Monger herself was, the formula was very predictable after the first issue and the ending it’s again easy to spot the minute you open the issue. We’re reintroduced to a character that’s new to the story line so of course they’re the catalyst for the ending. I’m not going to spoil it because I’m pretty sure you’d be able to figure it out from me telling you what their power was.
The shining moment of Unity #22 comes to us with the long con reveal of how War Monger has been getting played from the beginning. We got a little of that with the last issue, but now we find out that Ninjak and Livewire were both in on it as well. It was an okay con and I think Kindt did right by the audience by giving it a little reveal in the previous issue.
Also he voices the audience’s feelings with their annoyance about War Monger via Neville. He spells out that she talks to much and even though this was always clearly a part of her personality, she was still just too damn annoying. There’s good annoying and then there’s Deadpool annoying in which I just want to stop reading your story and never see you again (that’s right, I hate Deadpool). Frankly, I hope the solution they came up with for War Monger sticks for a very long time because I do not want to see her pop up any time soon in the Valiant Universe. Though I will admit that I liked the twist revealed about her, that did more for her character than anything else.
Another kind of surprising change for this story line is the fact that there’s only one artist on the book. I was personally pleased by this since I have only been enjoying half of the art so far. What’s strange is that the artist that was handling the present storyline isn’t the one to return to this issue. Instead Jose Luis and like five inkers handle the art duties. I’m not going to sugar coat it, there’s a bit of variation on the inking. Before I even saw how many were on the book I knew something was up because inkers can really effect the art. It’s nothing too noticeable, but I noticed it. Overall though, the art improved and honestly if there was better art on the story line it might have made for a better read overall… though War Monger’s constant censored swearing and overall personality would have still been annoying.
I’m pleased with the way this story ended. It at least did that well, but I’m very happy to have this story line closed out so that a new chapter of Unity can begin. Hopefully we’ll our team all in one issue at the same time after having two stories line break them apart and only one of those storylines doing it successfully (see the arc before War Monger). Not the best arc for the series, but at least something good came from it… no more War Monger… at least for now.
Score: 3/5
Unity #22 Writer: Matt Kindt Artist: Jose Luis Publisher: Valiant Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 9/9/15 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital