When I found out that this series was cancelled I was a bit surprised and disappointed. Especially after how mediocre the last issue was it just seemed like another blow to the chest. Knowing that there was no possible way of the last issues story continuing, I was actually looking forward to this issue. With a cancellation looming how could it not be the best of the best? How could it not be? How. Could. It. Not. Be. The book opens up sometime in the past and really gives minimal effort in explaining at what point in time it’s happening at which has been an ongoing problem with the series. Rex is being forced to watch the death of Nazrin one of the many parallel versions of Heidi and the Higher Earth Queen. He’s been captured and branded a traitor for helping her as she attempted to overthrow the Higher Earth system.
Cut to the present and Heidi and Rex are already engaged in a war and Rex is still missing his arm. His timeline signature has been erased by Sloan and so he’s barely alive. Heidi and two guys that like to make out named “The Twins” have been sent to get the flowers shown in the last issue and also another of Rex’s counterparts named Slug… so they can take his arm and give it to Rex. Shh, don't tell Slug he doesn't know.
I think the saddest part of this issue is the fact that it doesn’t even try to connect to the rest of the story. It not only fails to pick up from the fourth issue, but then the only real reference it makes to the fifth issue is the flowers and the first Queen. There has been a consistent storytelling device in which from issue to issue the plot will jump forward, but after the huge break from the story it would have been nice if it hadn’t jumped so far ahead. Literally it felt as if it just didn’t care if the reader was able to keep up and that just leaves tons of pointless easy questions that could have been answered. Character development in this issue? Zero. Rex and Heidi have somehow developed a father and daughter style of relationship that just feels awkward and out of place. Everything special about this series is gone and what’s left is just the beginning of the end.
The art is the art. Nothing has changed and the month off didn’t seem to help any considering the coloring is still the weakest part of it. Everything that was good or bad about issue one through four is still here. The thing that kills me about the art is that more than likely this issue was drawn before the announcement of the cancellation and its still suffers from the same problems. Lastly, four covers is overkill for this series and none of the four are that good.
I was disappointed by the cancellation of this series, but after reading this issue I don’t even know if I will bother with the rest of the series. Everything seems like it was just phoned in and dumped on someone else’s lap to finish. The writer didn’t want to finish it, the editors couldn’t figure out what they were looking at, the artist was too in love with their own style to improve and the colorist just used the paint bucket to color the page. I really have to wonder what the hell happened with this series that was so promising from the beginning and then really hooked me in with the fourth issue? Where the hell is that series because I would like to finish reading it; this series on the other hand couldn’t end fast enough.
Score: 2/5
Writer: Sam Humphries Artist: Francesco Biagini Publisher: Boom Studios Price: $3.99 Release Date: 10/31/12