Advance Review: ‘Time Before Time’ Comes To An End With Issue #29

After 29 issues, a handful of artists, and more than a billion years, Time Before Time has reached its end.

The series’ original creative team including writers Rory McConville and Declan Shalvey, artist Joe Palmer, and colorist Chris O’Halloran have reteamed to tell the epilogue to the overall story. If you’re looking for action and adventure, the team gave you plenty in the last chapter.

This issue – appropriately enough – goes back in time to the beginning of the series. We see Tatsuo, well before poorly insulated time pods gave him cancer. Instead, he is a healthy young man eking out a living as a time-skipping courier. Centuries later, we catch up with Nadia and the robot Kevin, who have just escaped a trap set for them by the mob-like Syndicate. They pair survived, but only because Tatsuo was able to engineer an unlikely rescue. In the end, though Tatsuo didn’t survive.

McConville and Shalvey deliver a clever, pitch-perfect ending to their labor of love. It’s thoughtful, touching, and even nostalgic. Longtime fans of the series will love what they read.

They will also likely love what they see given Palmer’s return to the series. He left after the first few story arcs but returns this last time to close things out. His illustrations are a welcome throwback, particularly given the nature of this particular story. O’Halloran’s colors give a welcome pop to the panels.

Batman and Spider-Man are great characters who have excited fans for decades, but it’s nice to see an independent series like Time Before Time survive for as long as it has. In an era where most original stories like this are relegated to a four- or six-part limited series, the world is better off with some longer-form tales to force readers to pay attention for a few years.

To Tatsuo, Nadia, Kevin, and the creative team, it was nice spending Time with you.

Time Before Time #29 will be available for purchase on November 15, 2023.