Project: Patron #2

Project: Patron #2

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Steve Orlando

Illustrated by Patrick Piazzalunga

Coloured by Carlos Lopez

Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Thirty years ago, we lost THE PATRON in a prehistoric fistfight with the monster WOE! The United Nations secretly replaced the Patron with a perfect duplicate, a Reploid.

This is the story of the five pilots who embody the Patron to repay the world’s faith and hope, and risk their lives to do so. When the leader of Project Patron dies, the team is shattered. Can they come together in time to solve the murder and stop Matthew Mammon, the Patron’s greed-worshipping nemesis, without the world figuring out the truth?

This is such an interesting book. The idea that there is a group that drives the Patron is infinitely fascinating to me and that Steve is able to write a story and make it feel like it’s more than science fiction and more science fact is a hard thing to do. This isn’t exactly “Who shot JR” but it is still a mystery to his crew and it is certainly interesting to see the reaction that they have to what has transpired. This is going to be an interesting aspect to the story and to see Mammon and his underlings being as creepy as can be just makes this that much sweeter to see. There really is this great balance in what is shown and what isn’t so that the reader is fully engaged in the story.

I really like 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 pretty amazing. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved. There’s a very natural and strong flow to how we see the story traverse the pages here and Steve’s natural talent, skill and chutzpah in the way he manages to tell this is on full display here.

The interiors here are rather nice to see. I like how we see the linework create this dark and broody mood that doesn’t feel forced or unnatural. How the varying weights are utilised to create the detail work is extremely nice to see. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds to really define the spaces they are in, the laboratory with all the stuff in it should be something we see more of. Still how we see the perspective, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is well achieved. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is nice to see as well. How the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a good eye for how colour works.

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I really do like this story and while it started off incredibly familiar Steve very quickly took it in a very different direction surprising us. That surprise element is one that remains throughout the story in both issues so that you have to pay attention to what’s happening or you are going to miss out on the little things that makes it special. There is something about this that really hits you in the feels and that it doesn’t feel trite or forced is utterly amazing to me. I am super impressed with the quality of the writing here and how we see the characters act and interact to one another through the dialogue and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter is beautifully rendered.