Well… I probably should have seen this coming. In retrospect, that’s what makes Matt Kindt a strong writer because he was able to pull one over on the readers and yet still deliver all the clues to have made the discovery for yourself. With long con reveals there’s two outcomes: the first is the result of bad writing, it’s a complete surprise because the story didn’t actual build towards the reveal. The second is what Kindt did. He gave you everything and the result is a satisfying statement of, “How did I miss this? Damn.” It’s so rare that I have the fleece pulled over me that I was actually happy that I didn’t catch everything in the story and yet looking back… all the clues were there. Oh, and this issue is just Roku versus Ninjak, but not in the way you think. I don’t know where Kindt takes the story from here. The landscape is different for Colin and it’s almost strange that Kindt has squashed the status quo that’s barely been established in this shared universe still in its infant stage. That is one of the reasons I keep reading Valiant. The landscape is constantly changing and just when you get too comfortable they blow it up. It’s never bad, though. It’s never forced feeling like say anything that Marvel produces. If anything, Valiant is the anti-Marvel.

Because the story starts with a reveal and is centered around that reveal I won’t be talking about the issue any further. I can’t even talk about the backstory this time because, as always, it’s connected to the main story. I will say once again though, that that is how you do a backstory. If it’s not actually feeding into the main plot line, then it’s just padding the page count.

Both artists on the issue deliver stunning art. The sequence between the first two pages is just magical. I had the benefit of scrolling up and down with my mouse which almost made it look like an animation. Even without that you’ll still get a similar effect with print or digital. This really is the best the book has looked since the first story arc and that’s not really a slam since everything after it looked incredible as well, this arc has just raised the bar.

I hate reviewing the end of an arc. I never know whether or not to spoil the shit out of it or just hold back like I’ve done here. It’s why I skip them. It’s not to hold back attention from the issue, but as a courtesy I chose not to spoil it for readers. At the end of the day, my goal with any review is to give you info on why you should or shouldn’t read it and you decide from there. If I spoil it all you don’t have much of a reason to check it out. Hopefully this review still convinced you to check it out and really the entire “Siege on King’s Castle” storyline.

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