With Amala’s Blade and Angel & Faith having recently ended, Catalyst Comix is now the Dark Horse comic that I look most forward to each month (well, maybe on par with Dream Thief, which also will end soon), which I consider high praise since about one quarter of it has gone right over my head the entire time. While I have my issues with it, let’s see what Catalyst Comix #3 (written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Dan McDaid, Ulises Farinas, and Paul Maybury) has in store.
When the last issue ended, I had no idea where they were going to take Frank Wells and his story. Things went in a really different direction than I had expected given the rather explosive beginning in the first issue, but now I’m seeing where that actually goes, and I really like it. I’m not going to tell you what it is because it’s something you need to discover as you read. It’s not something new at all to comics, so don’t expect the reinvention of comics as an art form, but it’s a change in direction to almost the polar opposite of how it started that they somehow manage to pull off. They’re not too heavy handed or awkwardly trying to shove a character where they don’t fit – they spent almost two issues making sure this transition happened smoothly. It doesn’t all work perfectly, as there’s a subplot that feels like it should mean something to me but I don’t understand, but it’s only a couple pages in an otherwise really good story.
The Grace storyline is finally starting to click. I’m still not entirely sure I follow all of it, but a new character was introduced that made it feel like things were finally starting to move forward. This character, Seaver, seems like someone of significance to the universe before the recent reboot, but regardless of that, he serves as some form of opposition to Grace. With his presence, there’s finally some sort of conflict which was missing before, and the story feels like it’s finally going somewhere.
Then, on to the section with my favorite name, Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker, more correctly known as Agents of Change (and no, I don’t think I will ever get tired of this gag). For all the improvement to Grace’s storyline, this one is starting to lose me, so apparently there has to be at least one storyline in each issue that I don’t quite get. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from the end of the previous issue, but they don’t go there and it throws me off badly. It doesn’t ignore the reveal, but it’s much less important than the end of the last issue would make you believe. For that reason, the story ends up being more confusing and disorienting than anything else, which is a disappointment for a segment I’ve loved so much so far.
I continue to really enjoy the art. Frank Wells’s story has a lot of different locations and styles blended together flawlessly, helping greatly to keep the tone from feeling jarring throughout. Grace continues to have really interestingly designed locations, and her adversary Seaver has, while a little cliche, a well-done design that is just mildly off-putting. Nothing jumped out at me in the other series this time, but I still love the design of the characters – while it’s not new, that doesn’t mean it’s not good.
All things said, I still definitely recommend this book. I’ve absolutely loved the Frank Wells story from the beginning and I think that alone is worth $2.99, which I still can’t believe is the price for issues in this series. Grace’s story is starting to pick up, and I haven’t given up on Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker (not after one bad issue, since Grace’s story went through two), so there’s plenty of interesting stuff going on in this series still.
Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) is mildly disappointed in his buddies with the amazing names. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.