Advance Review: `White Savior’ #4 Laughs Its Way To The Finish
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
This limited series arrives at its conclusion while throwing as many jokes and quips at its readers as is possible. It can be a lot to digest – but it’s also a lot of fun in the process.
Overall
9/10There’s a lot going on in the conclusion to the White Savior limited series.
The time-displaced would-be hero Todd Parker is dealing with an impending attack from a Japanese warlord. His would-be girlfriend (who is also from our time but somehow thrust back into feudal Japan) just abandoned him because of said attack – after providing a profanity filled series recap. And the would-be actual white savior of the village is dead after Parker and his friend Maggie accidentally killed him.
That’s pretty much just the first page.
To say White Savior doesn’t take itself very seriously is a monumental understatement. In fact, writers Eric Nguyen and Scott Burman constantly go out of their way to lighten the mood with a quip or some other gimmick – typically with great results.
For example, at one dramatic point in the narrative, letterer Micah Myers writes a message to readers where he confesses his confusion over directions from Nguyen and Burman to “fill this page with foreboding music.” Lots of “bum bum bums” follow.
Of course, by choosing to explore the white savior trope in the first place, the writers are taking on a silly, if controversial subject. They throw the whole idea on its ear when Parker is discovered to be Asian, so the villagers he’s supposed to be protecting lose faith in him. After all, they were expecting a white savior.
Parker describes the situation this way: “We just have to think like a white person does when they’re surrounded by minorities – that through sheer willpower and good intentions we can save everyone.”
Nguyen provides the artwork and Iwan Joko Triyono gives colors, which typically involve lots of crimson red blood spraying everywhere. But don’t worry, it’s a comedy!
While this is the final issue in the series, the writers (jokingly?) set up a possible sequel in the final pages – which ends up being one of the funniest jokes they tell in the whole story. Joke or not, the world is ready for some more White Savior.
White Savior #4 will be available for purchase tomorrow.
