REVIEW: Interceptor #2

Â Interceptor, by Donny Cates and Dylan Burnett, is a surprisingly fun read. When I read the first issue, I was worried that it was going to be another “man flees earth because they did not take care of the environment” prose. That, thankfully, was not the case. Instead it took an odd turn towards vampires, androids, and wastelanders. While the story still nods towards environmental issues, it clear that the core theme more revolves around war and freedom. Donny’s plot for this second issue was very well done. His dialogue needs some work, but it is nothing detrimental. As for the art, Dylan did a fantastic job. He just needs to make sure that his panels are not too cluttered.

Â Â Â The teams start the issue with a creepy splash page of the vampire queen surrounded by naked, male, familiars. Sipping on a goblet of blood, she is debriefed by her sheriff, Arden Reeve, about his last mission. While the two discuss Arden’s recent success, his two captives, Doli and Weep, are being escorted to their jail cell. Doli is concerned about their current predicament, but Weep is unfazed. The two girls argue until… the lights shut off, and the cell door slides open. Things seems grim as the vampire inmates beset the dynamic duo. All of the sudden, a grenade drops from the ceiling and explodes with a bright flash of sunlight. Two new women enter the compound and render Doli, and Meep, unconscious. After a hazy trip, Doli finds herself waking up surrounded by new company. Who is this new cast of misfits? Is Doli out of fire, or did she just fall into the frying pan? I guess Donny and Dylan wants us to get the next issue to find out.

Â Â Â Donny does a very good job with the plot, and character development, this issue. His opening scenes between the queen and Arden was tactful. He could have gone the route that these are infallible creatures of evil, like most villains, but instead he added something we all can relate to; an ignorant political figure, drunk with power, interfering with a person trying to do their job. It is an important thing to do, add relative subject matter at the beginning of the story, because it pulls the reader into your fantastical universe. Another one of Donny’s strong suits is giving us information about his world on a need to know basis. This is sometimes a pitfall for creator owned work, but he does a good job making sure the reader isn’t lost or overwhelmed. And for a second issue, he also does a great job giving each character a unique voice and intent.

Â Â Â The real noticeable flaw, as far as the writing goes, was in the dialogue. There were quite a few points were narrative from each character, Weep especially, was too lengthy. Sometimes it was an issue with a lack of punctuation, sometimes it was just too wordy. For instance, Weep had a moment where she said,

Â Â Â “Now, we can stand around and argue about it or y“all can come over here and try to fight me, but I don“t think either of you has the balls enough to try so why don“t we–“

Â Â Â And it just did not flow very well with the scene. It gave the impression that the only two options were fightÂ orÂ argue, which are the same thing. I would suggest cutting it down to something that is less of a mouthful. However, this kind of problem is not that big of a deal, and it is easily solvable.

Â Â Â As far as the art goes, I thought it was well done. Clean lines, strong inks, and good colors. While his splash pages were great, I thought his best work on the issue was the blackout scenes towards the end. He did a really good job bouncing around the destruction in the city. The movement was smooth and the colors were dynamic. My suggestion is to tone it down on some of the line holds. Not all of them, since most were used as highlights, but just ones that were unnecessary. Like the red holds on Doli in the prison. Outside of that, Dylan is doing a fantastic job with this series so far.

Â Â Â Interceptor is definitely something to keep in mind if you are looking for some obscure sci-fi. There are a couple of minor complications in the dialogue, but that should not deter from the obvious talent this creative team has. Both Donny and Dylan seem to be having a lot of fun with this series, and they have a lot of coals in the fire. I am interested to see what comes next, and I suggest picking this one up. I give Interceptor #2, 4.5 out of 5.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Publisher:Â HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE

(W) Donny Cates (A) Dylan Burnett (CA) Nick Pitarra

Author Profile

Dylan Hicks

I just graduated from MSUD with my BAS in Mathematics. I live in a small 1 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, and our two cats. I work full time for NTIA-ITS as a Computer Scientist. All I really do is engineer mathematical models and write code all day. I took up this second job at Comic Crusaders as a way to become more involved with the comic book community. Since I was a child I have loved comics. I grew up reading Spider-Man, Shi, New Mutants, Spider Woman, and Gen13. As I got older, however, my tastes started to shift from almost exclusively Marvel to various independent labels. Now I read a huge variety of comics: Valiant, Black Mask, Aspen, Avatar, Image, Dynamite, Boom, Aftershock, etc.. If anyone wants to know, my favorite publisher, hands down, is Valiant.
I am also working on writing a few comic books myself. I have about 4 ideas in the fire, but only 1 of them is really getting anywhere; I have 6 of the 10 books finished. In addition to writing, I am also a practicing colorist. If you want to checkout any of my writing samples, or coloring samples, please check out my DeviantArt and let me know what you think.
dirtgrubdylan.deviantart.com.
Some more about me? I love black metal and video games. I usually spend most of my time hanging out with my girlfriend. We have been together for 6 years, so at this point she is basically my best friend. But when I am not with her, I get together with my friends to drink some beer and play some Magic, the Gathering. And, as pretentious as this is, I am also working on starting my own engineering firm. So that involves me reading a lot of textbooks on Mathematics and Computer Science.
So yeah, if you have made it this far thank you very much! I am crazy excited to start my career in writing. Let's see what I can do with this.