Review: Catalyst Comix #4

I’m continually surprised by this series. For something that I knew nothing about and only picked up because it was a #1 issue, Catalyst Comix has become my most anticipated comic each month (and will probably hold that spot until they announce what Christos Gage is writing next). The biggest way that it surprises me is that Catalyst Comix #4 (written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Paul Maybury, Ulises Farinas, and Dan McDaid) manages to completely flip something I expected about the series in the best possible way.

She’s become awesome enough to deserve this cover now.

I’ve completely turned around on the Amazing Grace storyline, which is now the A storyline. I remember dreading this while reading a previous issue, but it turns out that was just a slow start. They spent so much time saying that Grace is amazing (hence the nickname) without showing her doing anything. That changed completely once Mr. Seaver came in, putting her in opposition against someone, and the story has only improved from there. This issue continues the crazy battle of the minds that started in the previous issue, and the banter between the two of them just keeps getting better. I especially want to comment on the art, as part of this seems to have been an excuse to give Paul Maybury free reign to come up with interesting areas to draw, making full use of Grace’s ability to teleport wherever she likes. I’m usually not a big art person, but I can’t wait to get a hard copy (my tablet’s resolution just can’t stand up) so I can look at it in more detail.

Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker – I mean, Agents of Change (that joke is still not old) – have gone back in a more interesting direction, showing that the last issue was only a small hiccup. The problem with these smaller stories is that sometimes 8 pages is too little to tell a significant piece of a story, and the last one suffered from that. Since the end of the second issue showed that they’re all in some sort of virtual reality, I wanted to know more, but the last issue didn’t really advance the story. This issue does, showing us that even though they’re called the Agents of Change, they’re not causing the change in the way you’d expect. I get the feeling that things will really move forward when they take over as the A storyline, but I still like the bits and pieces of story in here.

Finally, after starting off as being the A story, The Ballad of Frank Wells has been moved to the C story, and the transition is a bit abrupt. The story pieces given here have to be shorter, but I still love how they use Frank to fight much more mundane problems. It’s an interesting return to essentially the root of superheroes as we know them – while these are big, world issues, he’s fighting mundane people like dictators and corrupt businessmen, far from his apocalypse-averting heroics from the first issue, which highlights the shift in his character. I wish that they’d spent more time on showing the shift in his character across a couple issues rather than montage, but I still quite enjoyed reading it. The ending kind of disappointed me, as it seems intended for people already familiar with the original series, but as I’m not, it just went over my head.

Overall, I definitely recommend this issue. I still cannot believe that Dark Horse is selling this for $2.99, given that it’s three simultaneous stories in a 32-page book, and that’s not even considering how good they are. Grace’s story has gone from uninteresting to my favorite, Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker continue to make me want to repeat their names over and over, and while Frank Wells doesn’t handle the transition as well as I’d like, it’s still entertaining, so go and pick this book up.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) has found that an unintentional side effect of reading this comic is having church music stuck in your head all day. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.