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Dejah Thoris versus John Carter of Mars #01

Dynamite Entertainment

By Steven LeitmanPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Dejah Thoris versus John Carter of Mars #01

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Dan Abnett

Illustrated by Alessandro Miracolo

Coloured by Dearbhla Kelly

Lettered by Simon Bowland

An epic adventure, reuniting fiction’s greatest lovers: Dejah Thoris from Barsoom, and John Carter from Earth! But their reunion is short-lived…THE LONGBORN, an ancient and mysterious race of immortal “gods” have arrived to reclaim what is theirs: MARS!

Can Dejah and Carter’s love hold through a planet-sized war?

Colour me intrigued that’s for sure. While I’m not a big fan of self-pity I do understand John’s lack of confidence at the moment. Though he needs to get over that and work on his self esteem and talk to the woman he loves instead of running away. Meanwhile he is right about one thing Dejah is a strong willed, independent and highly capable woman, Queen or no. So much so that she too at times fails to remember that there are those around her who would do anything to keep her alive, protect her and shield her from danger though loathe as she is to admit that not fighting head on is not a sign of weakness we fully understand her position and where she comes from as well. Dan is good at bringing us into the story so we’re engaged and invested in a short amount of time.

I am really rather enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter is exceptionally well portrayed. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story we get caught up in these events with ease.

The way we see this being structured and how the layers within the story are emerging and growing are strong and interesting. The avenues we see being explored from previous arcs continuing and those that are newly opening contain the twists & turns, revelations and the characterisation and whether they work with the main arc or swirl around it they add depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceedingly well.

The interiors here are nicely rendered. The linework is good and solid and how we see the varying weights being utilised to create the detail work is extremely nice to see. I will say that John looks more like Tarzan and Tars is way too skinny but other than that I really like what we see here. We need more backgrounds because they enhance the moments and work within the composition of the panels to bring out depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book. What we see at times is weird body proportions and odd depth when we see John and Tars so they would benefit from backgrounds in the panels to even that out. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is nicely rendered as well. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is well applied.

Well I will say I hadn’t expected to see a tribute to the infamous Xenomorph but I kind of like that. With the writing being at the level it is from Dan we get a great story with sensational characterisation and it is what draws us back time and time again to these characters.

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About the Creator

Steven Leitman

Just me talking about the comics I enjoy reading, ones that you might not know exist and spotlighting the indie creators that excite me.

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