Review: ‘The Author Immortal’ #5 Concludes The First Arc
by Benjamin Hall
Summary
While the child is confronting a king the father attempts a rescue with the barbarian. However, not everything is as it seems in this battle. Also Sheila has a revelation about Hector. Yet, is this occurrence at the worst possible time for Al and Hector?
Overall
8/10Writer Frank J. Barbiere conceives of a mostly fantastic script for this concluding chapter of the first arc. Still, it is worth mentioning that one page’s panel layout feels out of sequence midway through. This is apparently because Barbiere’s scripts a piece of dialogue before another in a way that cannot be a lettering mistake. Also it feels very unlikely to be the mistake of artist Morgan Beem. Nevertheless, Barbiere is doing a commendable job with the characterization while building off the events of prior issues.
Letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou does a great job with sizing the anchors and word balloons. Though it is unclear whether Otsmane-Elhaou or Beem is responsible for a great sound effect that sees rendering in a pinkish color.
The interiors for the story feature Beem’s artwork. Unfortunately, Beem either for the purpose of expediency or stylization draws some pretty basic clouds on one page. However, the rest of that page is of the same high quality as the majority of the story. Though one can argue the opening page is higher in quality than the rest of the interiors that Beem creates for this issue. This difference in quality is simply because Beem gets to draw a more fantastical and bright piece than ninety-nine percent of the other pages. As for the color palettes in the interior pages Beem uses sames ones as the prior issues, minus the debatable page.
Cover A is Beem’s creation, and cover B features a visual by artist Dalton James Rose. The main cover features a character acting like they are inviting the reader with a dark promise. This design hints at the story without providing key details that could spoil the narrative. As for the variant cover Rose draws a main character in a pose that is also inviting the reader, but without the dark promise. While cover B’s design somewhat acts like a mirror to the design that cover a has there are exceptions, such as line work and coloring.
The Author Immortal #5 comes out from Image Comics on February 25th.
