From Star Cross Comics comes The Tribulation Force a Christian centric superhero comic set in the world after the Rapture. For those who aren’t in the know the Rapture precedes the Great Tribulation at the end of days. A young man is visited by God and empowered to becomes Grok, the leader of the last age of heroes the world will ever know before the end.
Given that this comic is a 0 issue for the series this particular comic has a great deal of exposition. Nearly half the comic is set up to introduce the reader to the world the story is set in. Generally this sort of thing is to be expected and even welcomed in a 0 issue of a comic series. In this case however it is somewhat meddled and required at couple of read through to completely understand what I was reading. Part of the issue is that some of the visuals are a bit vague so I had trouble relating them to the words. For instance there were a couple of instances where I wasn’t certain if I was supposed to be looking at a hero or a villain. There are two pages in the opening which pretty much depict the same events but one gives you no context for the images while the next page does. That and the exposition has multiple chapters which is nice to help break things up but for some reason the second chapter entitled History Lesson has an unnecessary sub header titled The Age of Heroes. This would be fine if there were multiple sub chapters but that is not the case.
The second part of the book gives us an actual story, a chance to learn more abou some of the characters, there relationships and more about they world they live in. This was your pretty standard superhero fare but with the Christian message that is at the heart of this comic. This was my favorite part as it allowed me to start connecting to and caring about the characters and their struggles. It does have an odd transition though into something like an epilogue without it being acknowledged as such. Without a proper break this was a bit jarring because this is the page where we finally match names and faces for the heroes. I would argue that this should have been done as part of the first story page and not the second to last page of the book.
ART
Art wise the is pretty solid. Its got a pretty good late 80’s style to it. The art is clean and dynamic with bold, vibrant colors. The pages are well laid out with a good flow to them and the images are easy to follow. The only issue I have is with some of the incongruity between the scripting and the images. I’m not sure where the failing here lies. If its a lack of communication between the writer and the artist or if perhaps the letterer hasn’t captioned the proper pages. Because there are obvious pages and panels that don’t quite jive with the story or dialogue. It doesn’t ruin the comic but it is noticeable.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A pretty decent introduction into a new comic series but it not without some flaws in the execution. Worth a look if you are looking for something new and original in you superhero genre especially with a Christian slant check it out. 3 out of 5!
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
THE TRIBULATION TASKFORCE 0
Writer:Â Bill Raupp
Art:Â Rully Akbar, Arman Abeleda, Jardel Cruz, Gilbert Monsanto, Luis Rivera, Bill Marimon
Colors:Â Periya Pillai
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