I have to give it to the creative team… they keep it interesting. This issue is different from the first two issues, but good different. I think that’s the thing that Donny Cates recognizes about his own style, that you have to break from it some so that the impact of the colorful characters still resonates later in the story. If you overkill it, then no one’s going to find them cute anymore because they’ll have moved into annoying territory. What’s great about this issue is that we’re given a lot more of the nuts and bolts of the story. We’re given explanations on both sides of the story and frankly there’s some tomfuckery going on. Someone or everyone is getting played and we’ll just have to ride it out and see how everything shakes out.
The story heads back to Palus as we meet our child president. Let’s not get into politics at the moment, but our kid president wants an explanation as to why the feed from the mech suit is showing our vampire sheriff from before trying to break into the suit that he took from Poli. After a stint here we head to Poli who is at the center of the story this go around. The previous two issues have been heavy on Weep’s story, but after the two have a heart to heart the story stays with Poli. Here’s where we learn that the rich people on Palus can basically live forever and look eternally young. I have to give it to Donny Cates… that was clever as fuck.
Poli and Weep are trying to capture a Tick for an experiment of Weep’s, but her dad interrupts. This leads to another heavy hitting conversation that asked questions of morality while making social commentary at the same time. It was good stuff and showed that the story wasn’t just focusing on being a crazy apocalyptic vampire tale. This conversation is interrupted by the Sheriff Arden Reeve… aka our vampire that stole the suit. He has a ton of reveals, even if only a few end up being true they’re still really good and again showed more of social commentary element of the story that I wasn’t expecting.
I know it seems like I recapped a lot, but what’s really good about this issue is the conversations and how the reveals are seamlessly woven within the conversations. If you haven’t read Donny Cates’ stuff yet this was the heavy type of conversations I was waiting for, but you just don’t know when they’re going to hit. The series continues to be a romp, but the added deeper character elements make it that much better.
Dylan Burnett continues to knock it out of the park with the art. Especially the extra scenes we see while the characters are talking. Since the conversations are so natural flowing Burnett wonders with the art showing us the world and doesn’t focus on showing us talking heads. It adds to the conversation in a great way as it brings the visuals of the conversation alive to us the reader. I continue to really enjoy his character designs and just Burnett’s art style in general.
The neon future punk coloring from Dee Cunniffe continues to give the series a stunning look and personality to boot. The coloring really is vibrant and adds so much to Burnett’s style. I don’t have a lot more to say about it, but it’s sold coloring.
Frankly I’m loving what Heavy Metal is doing. They’re publishing creator owned books that other publishers probably passed on and shouldn’t have. Interceptor may be a dystopian future, but I’ll tell you right now it’s the only comic of said genre that I’m reading. All those other books can go screw is what I’m getting at because I want more of Interceptor. Maybe skip a few DC books this week since they’re all rebooting anyway and pick up this entire series and actually enjoy something you’re reading for once.
Score: 5/5
Interceptor #3 Writer: Donny Cates Artist: Dylan Burnett Colorist: Dee Cunniffe Publisher: Heavy Metal Price: $3.99 Release Date: 3/2/16 Format: Print/Digital