REVIEW: Escape of the Relentless

Writer/Creator: Brian Dorsey
Artist: Flavio Nano Giron
Colors: Omi Remalante Jr.
Letters: Ernesto Lovera
Cover: Darryl Patrucci
Publisher: Mountain West Productions 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Relentless! The Relentless is a space frigate that primarily has the job of rounding up space pirates in the outer territories. 

In issue #1 of “Escape of the Relentless” our story begins with the ship receiving a distress beacon from a capital ship near Zala 3. The captain wonders why there was a capital ship in his sector without his knowledge; but he’s going to have to worry about that later.

When the Relentless reaches Zala 3 its monitors detect three ships in orbit around the planet. The captain dispatches some fighters to scout the area. The fighter reports back that there was a heavy firefight between two Qua-La Capital ships and the Runan Empire ship the Relentless received the distress call from. Evidently the Qua-La decided to ignore the peace treaty.

All three ships are damaged to the point that they are drifting. The captain sends a team to search the Runan ship for survivors. What the team finds is nothing short of shocking.

Artwork:

.75 Stars

The artwork has very crisp lines. I really liked the panels of the Relentless from a distance. In some panels the humans’ facial features aren’t quite as well defined as I would have liked to see.

Story:

.75 Stars 

This story reminds me of Star Trek and the novel, Starship Troopers. From a militaristic perspective it leans towards Starship Troopers. It has an interesting plot line that has left me very curious to see where it’s taking us.

Dialogue:

.75 Stars 

There’s a lot of information being given to the reader through the dialogue. With the militaristic style of story that Escape of the Relentless is most of the conversations take the form of briefings and orders being given.

Editing:

.75 Stars 

The lettering is terrific. It’s in fonts that are readable without being done in colors that are hard to differentiate from the background.

The captions explaining what some of the acronyms are were very helpful. A couple more would have made things clearer. 

I understand that OPS stands for Operations and XO is Executive Officer. I’m not sure what WEPS is. Speculation would have me saying Weapons, but I don’t know for certain.

Mechanics:

.75 Stars 

Reading Escape of the Relentless it took a while to fall into the story. Once it gets going this book reads like a runaway train. There was so much momentum that when I reached the final page it was disappointing to see the variant cover instead of another page.

I would like to see more character development in the future. It’s not uncommon for the setting and plot to take precedence over giving that many characters personalities in so few pages.

I’m of the opinion that this story is on solid ground. With that foundation there is plenty of room to build up the captain and some members of the the search and rescue team. I look forward to the opportunity to get to know these characters better in future issues. 

I enjoyed reading Escape of the Relentless. With all the twists and turns we took I am very eager to see what the creative team is going to come up with next!