Today’s Comic> Tekwar Chronicles #5

Jake's favorite movie? "I, Robot". Untrue story.

William Shatner Presents: The Tekwar Chronicles #5

Bluewater Productions (October 2009? What?)

WRITERS: William Shatner & Scott Davis

PENCILER: Lipe Oliveira

COLORIST: Zachary Turner

LETTERER: Jaymes Reed

EDITOR: Craig J. Nevius

COVER: Erich Owen

After the events of the previous arc, there’s a power vacuum in the Tek gangs, leading to a gang war. Not that it matters to Jake. However, Winger (no relation) arrives believing he killed someone. Jake agrees to check it out and heads for his old police precinct, only to be arrested by Winterguild under suspicion of murder. (Namely the girl way back in #2 that he found dead in his old house.) Naturally, Winterguild is looking for any excuse to put Jake back in the cooler, until the robots go haywire, even Bascom’s. Bascom is sure that a master hacker is locked into the entire net, and that Beth may also be in danger. The strain finally gets to Jake, and as he’s about to give in to his Tek addiction, Virtual Gomez pops up again just as someone slugs Jake.

What they got right: A new arc, a new mystery. They also remember events of the previous arc and use it to fuel this arc. That’s some good planning. This has the potential to go wrong, but it’s either going to be part of this arc or a set-up for a future arc.

What they got wrong: I wish Eric Owen was doing the inside like he did the color. “Downgrade” may be too harsh a word, since it’s not so much bad as “stylish” and a style I really don’t care for. At the very least it’s not as good as the art has been thus far. Then there’s the color. There are just a number of pallet choices that don’t make a lot of sense to me (especially in the first scene, which may or may not be the lighting in the Tek den, which is also a bit more graphic than I like–why are the last two issues so darn gross after the first three were only as gory as the story required?), but it does match the art, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

Recommendation: Get Eric Owen back on art chores, and let’s see what the colorist does with a better artist. Otherwise, the story is still as good. But if the gore continues down the path it is, I may end up dropping the title.

Hey, where's my Kool-Aid?