The Immortal was definitely one of the better indie books I’ve read of late, but whenever I see a “of 8” or “of insert number here” on an indie book I get nervous. You have to ask yourself when you’ll see the book next, but thankfully for The Immortal, the answer was “not long.” It is a testament then to the creator, Darryl Knickrehm, that he produced the next issue so quickly because it is not an easy process, nor is it a quick one. The second issue of The Immortal picks up with our immortal Z being reanimated again. In the first issue he was retracing his steps in order to capture a bounty, but found out that things weren’t as they seemed. After reanimating he goes over everything he knows with his robot helper and decides to track down the person that issued the bounty to him. Of course it’s not that easy and proves to be a dead end of a lead. He does manage to get himself in a lot of trouble as he visits a planet known for their greed. Soon he’s recognized as a human, a species most thought to be extinct.
The second issue manages to be fairly consistent with the first. In some slight ways it’s better and in other ways it has the same stumbles. The robot helper feels like a worthless character. Our main character doesn’t listen to him and all of their conversations are generic. Meanwhile, the secondary character’s dialogue improves and provides real content to the issue.
The writing is consistent and the narration continues to be solid. Good narration shouldn’t be overkill and it isn’t here. I wouldn’t say that this is the most original concept for this issue, but it was well executed and continued the story.
The art is definitely the driving force for the consistency. That’s a good thing since seeing the art swift issue to issue has frankly become a problem with the industry. A story or story arc should be able to be collected as a whole and look visually the same. My only gripe with the art this time around is that the cover has more life to it then the busy crowd scenes in the issue. Otherwise, there’s some new character designs and it continues to have a strong sci-fi feel to it.
This issue proves that the first issue wasn’t a fluke. I know I used the word “consistency” a lot in this review and it was intentional. Comics last year suffered from inconsistency and so it’s actually a huge compliment for me to use it so many times about this issue. After reading two issues, I’m definitely onboard for the next few.
Score: 4/5
The Immortal #2 Writer/Creator: Darryl Knickrehm Publisher: Waylines Media Price: $3.99 Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital Website