Review: ‘Adventureman: Family Tree’ Improves The Graphics

Penciler and colorist Terry Dodson is fantastic with his line work. Yet, one has to see the supplemental section to truly get how well he is doing. Although, if one is just looking at the art on the story pages, one can see that he displays great facial expressions and body proportions. His choices within a color palette differs depending on which part of the respective narratives one is looking at. Each of the flashbacks — and some of the present day scenes — have different hues that help highlight the differing lead characters.

Inker Rachel Dodson, like Terry, does a fantastic job with the line work. Her lines are confident and enhance Terry’s lines in a way that arguably feels like hers are stabilizing his.

Letterer Clayton Cowles does a mostly amazing job placing the text in various fonts. However, Cowles fails at least once at the job of lettering when bolding a single letter in a word that does not need emphasis in a creator bio.

Writer Matt Fraction has a few lines of dialogue that are arguably clunky. Also, there are some words which are relatively obscure. However, these bits of writing are rather rare, and there are context clues for the latter problem. The only other concern: that one word is missing a letter, but this could also be Cowles’s fault. On the plus side of things, Fraction does as good a job as in the first story arc, if not better, when it comes to plotting (Adventureman, Vol. 1: The End And Everything After [2020]). Additionally, the characters’ various personalities come across as different because of how they handle their respective situations. Finally, the entire story arc makes logical sense and is not repetitive like the last one (Adventureman, Vol.3: Ghost Lights [2024]).

Graphic designer Leandro Olea really makes the logos pop out within this collection. Olea’s work also displays personal improvement over his work in previous volumes.

Adventureman: Family Tree is out now from Image Comics.