Do you know what the absolute strangest thing about this issue is? It’s the fact that it’s the best fucking issue thus far in the series. I’m perplexed about this series a bit since its release schedule is sporadic at best, but the sales where huge for it. It really felt like this would be the next Saga or The Walking Dead, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen now with the delays. That could all change with this issue which reveals a lot and yet changes everything. One thing I’ll say about this series is that it’s not a happy story, just like real life there is both good and bad and you just have to hope that the good outweighs the bad. The story kicks off with an explanation about how all of these powers came to be and while I’m not going to tell you, I will say that the source of it has been our protagonist aka scorned team member Simon. It’s an interesting twist for sure, but it only gets bigger and bigger. Emerson and Ellis are travelling to find the space station crew when they receive a report from the Antarctica location and kick their super jet in the ass to get there.

In Antarctica Simon arrives through a teleportation panel and interrupts the discussion happening and before you ask, no he’s not supposed to be there. He begins using his technology to find the other space station crewmembers and starts bringing them back through teleportors. He also schools Pierce on his teleportor which is jacked up considering he has no idea what went down on the station. It soon becomes clear that there are going to be more than one band united today at the station.

What I think the story does well is show that no one is perfect. Each character is flawed and has a fault, even our space station group. For them though, it’s more about how they respond to the situation that they’re in. They’re obviously still confused and upset and so they lash out when they find out they were basically science experiments between two geniuses with a rivalry. Our rockstar scientists also show they’re flawed human side with the many things revealed about them. The character moments, the dialogue and monologues are all fantastic and build the story in interesting ways.

The art is always great so no surprise when I say that it’s still great. With so much dialogue the art does all the heavy lifting. The characters facial expressions and emotions all stem from the art. The visuals also keep the issue from being dull because as you can imagine its dialogue heavy. Yet you’re never bored and the art is always stunning to look at. Seeing our space team all in one spot was cool and hopefully we’ll see more of them together in the next issue.

Well it’s going to be a while before we see this series again (January), but it looks like its adding Emi Lenox to the series. We’ll have to see if the two styles match up, but at least it looks like their taking steps to produce issues faster, which is really the only problem with this series. This issue closes out the first arc and it’s great, but damn I wish it came out closer to the fifth issues release. There’s a trade planned for November so if you fell off of this series you’ll at least be able to check out the story as a whole. If you’ve kept up with series regardless like I have, then do not miss this issue.

Score: 5/5

Writer: Eric Stephenson Artist: Nate Bellegarde Colorist: Jordie Bellaire Publisher: Image Comics Price: $2.99 Release Date: 10/16/13