Low Vol. 4: Outer Aspects of Inner Attitudes
Rick Remender, writer; Greg Tocchini, artist; Dave McCaig, colors
Image Comics, 2017

The main focus in this short four-issue collection is Tajo Caine, who returns to her family home on the dome city of Salus to find a city on the brink of devastation. As her mother had predicted, vital systems are failing: there is no food, no air, no hope. Tajo bands together with IO (a man with an ancient secret), and Mertali, a brave mermaid from the gladiator pits of Poluma. Her nemesis Lena has planted a bomb which will deliver the final death blow to the city. In the end Tajo’s group takes their newly found information about a habitable planet in another galaxy to the city’s rulers–and basically pull off a coup to fly the city up to the surface and off to the stars. The whole time Tajo is debating about her self-image, coming to terms with her role as events unfold. Her final embrace of her self worth parallels the story conclusion, which strikes me as a bit pat–but the whole series has had a family therapy tone all along, so it comes with the territory. The introspection is accompanied by plenty of action, beautifully illustrated by Tocchini, as always.

Silver Volume 3
Stephan Franck
Dark Planet, 2017

I contributed to the Kickstarter campaigns for this collection as well as the previous one, so clearly I’m on board for this creative vampire/pulp/gothic/noir mashup. Our team of crooks is out to rip off Dracula’s secret treasure, and one of them is a Van Helsing descendant. Which sounds like it could be a stylistic mess, but Franck totally makes it work. Flashbacks provide a lot of Sledge’s history: she has clearly had a personal agenda, and this explains why. The heist/con concludes in this installment, and there are surprises right up to the end. Plenty of chances for the enterprise to go off the rails, too, so the tension is almost constant. Looking forward to the series conclusion in Volume 4.