Horizon #4 Review

Horizon #4

Writter: Brandon Thomas
Artist: Juan Gedeon
Colorist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Russ Wooten
Editor: Sean Mackiwicz
Publisher: Skybound Imprint of Image

A review by Robert Coffil

Horizon #4 continues the high octane thrills of the last issue.  I thought issue 3 was going to be the climax of the arc and the pinnacle of the action by Juan Gedeon, but I was wrong!

Hot off the heels of busting Finn out of the Kepler Conspiracy’s elaborate prison facility, Zhia and the rest of her team must now fend them off during a rubber burning car chase. Hundreds of rounds, grenade debris, and Finn, sans explosive crawling around in his body, they are able to escape from the closing clutches of Kepler’s agents.

I want to point out two things about the car chase. First, one of the agents, Jeff Lattimore, takes the aliens busting their colleague out of jail personally. After both the chase vehicle and the alien’s vehicle are demolished from the road action, the Kepler agents receive orders to fall back. Agent Lattimore promptly proceeds to cut his comms and keep up the fight. Moments like these give personality to an otherwise faceless enemy. Too many times we see faceless agents be taken out by a group of protagonists. By giving this agent a bit of vim and vigor, Thomas adds personality to otherwise personality-less minions. I liked this. Secondly, the art of Juan Gedeon might be the best action piece in the series thus far. It’s not just the bullets and the explosions that are wonderfully drawn, but his storytelling never confuses the eye. Gedeon’s panel work may be a little bare, but he conveys motion like no other.

The rest of the issue consists of Zhia and her team’s reprisal against Kepler Conspiracy, not only for capturing and torturing one of their own, but for the thought that they would be able to take their Valius with impunity. I won’t spoil anything, but we do see agent Lattimore again and he is told to ‘just watch’ in a rare moment of levity in this book.

A beat of this issue took me off guard, in a good way. Finn has to mentally come to grips with his time captured by Kepler. In what could have been a tense moment, with him pointing a gun at Zhia, Sherrie and Marisol, Marisol calls their unit family. Finn is suffering from a bout of PTSD and instead of shunning him or making him live on the street of an alien world, they show him love and compassion. Even on a mission where they likely have no way to return, they are not cold-hearted butchers. I took heart in this moment.

The Verdict
Buy it! The Horizon series has continually caught me off guard with the way it switches from pulse pounding action to thoughtful meditation on how to treat PTSD. I encourage everyone to grab the issues and catch up for Horizon #4 before they become hard to find.