REVIEW: Battle Chasers #12

Ludo Lullabi and Joe Madureira do it again in the newest issue of Battle Chasers. Packed to the brim with action, clever dialogue, and fantastic art this is yet another installment that you don’t want to miss.

In just two issues this happens to become one of my favorite comics to read ever. The art is amazing and the pacing of the story is finger-licking good. Plus the lettering by Richard Starking & Tyler Smith is some of the best lettering work I’ve seen in a long time. This story combines fantasy, magic, technology, and lots and lots of action into 30 pages of pure entertainment.

This issue continues where we left off with the girl with the magic gloves and the giant robot, and whether the king is going to arrest her or let her keep the gloves. It also continues the arc of the red femme fatale and our muscular warrior Garrison as they try their best to escape what looked like bloodthirsty magical humanoid monsters that are trying to kill them. The action is outstanding and there’s tons of it. Pretty much every other page has someone shooting a gun or swinging a magical weapon, and the poses are so dynamic and the colors so great that it’s very hard to take your eyes off it. I hadn’t any clue who Ludo Lullaby was before I read the last issue of Battle Chasers but after today, I will not forget that name. The character designs continue to be impeccable, interesting and inventive. From the robots to the magical monsters to the normal people they all have fantastic shapes that describe their anatomy in really fascinating ways. The use of black ink is masterfully applied to create pages that are heavy and gritty but also clean and easy to understand.

The story itself is equally good, but this being issue number 12, I do suggest you go back and pick up a couple of the first issues as well so that you are able to follow the story as best as you can. There are a lot of characters and you might have a little bit of a hard time knowing what’s happened to who at any given time if you don’t have a good grasp of the lore so far. I personally have only read 2 issues so far, #11 and this one #12, but it’s so good that I am excited to go back and pick up the rest so I can follow the story even better. The lettering is fantastic too! From the sound fxs to the different word balloons used for enemies and hero characters, it shows that the letterers in this project are true professionals and have been doing this for a very long time. I am a huge fan of the word balloons they use. While they do use some of your standard oval word balloons, they also use very custom cut-up and sharp word balloons that imply darkness and evil very well and I think that when you are able to truly identify a character just by its word balloon you have nailed the voice of that character very well, and inside your mind, it almost reads like a tv show, which for me is a huge milestone for any comic to achieve.

The world of Battle Chasers is carefully crafted and wonderfully thought out and I can’t help to keep diving in and learning more things about the characters. Both the main plot and the b-plot are equally interesting but even though I love the action, I think what’s happening back at the castle with the girl with the gloves is gearing up to be really awesome, and I love the way it’s being told. It’s paced in such a way that it feels like a mystery is being unfolded whilst on the other hand you have people beating the heck out of each other in order to survive and I love all of it.

Whatever you do. Do yourself a favor and pick up Battle Chasers because this is without a doubt going to become an instant classic in the comics world, and I think you should be there when it happens. I am excited to continue reading and seeing the art continue growing and expanding. I’m also very excited to see how Ludo handles more peaceful scenes, because this comic is so action-packed that I can’t even imagine how it’s going to look once we are out of battle and into more serene waters.

Writing: 5 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 5 Stars

Written by: Joe Madureira
Art by: Ludo Lullabi
Lettering by: Richard Starking & Comiccraft’s Tyler Smith
Cover art by: Joe Madureira & Billy Garretsen
Variant Covers by: Joboy Myers, Stanley “Artgerm” Lau, Reiq, Andre Cockroach & Derrick Chew
Published by Image Comics

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”