‘Gargoyles’ #2 requires patience

The setup continues.

January 24, 2023

Issue #2 of Gargoyles begins the evening after issue #1 left off. After visiting the solitary egg in the rookery, four of the Gargoyles decide to visit Maggie the Cat and the other mutates to see if they can witness the birth of their child. When they arrive, they find a disturbing scene: all of the mutates and humans alike have been knocked out, and Maggie is missing along with her human midwife. It doesn’t take long for them to find a suspect and the group quickly sets off for Xanatos. Unfortunately for the Gargoyles, we know that Xanatos is not the responsible party.

SPOILERS AHEAD for Gargoyles #2!

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The tease at the end of issue #1 is confirmed, and it is Thailog and Sevarius that have stolen Maggie the Cat and the midwife.

The B-plot of the issue involves the crime families of New York. Dominic Dracon has been released from prison based on a bogus dementia diagnosis. His grandchildren wonder how peace will be made between their grandfather and their uncle once he is also released from prison.

So first, the good: The artwork is consistent with the quality from the previous issue. There’s a couple of great splash pages, one of which shows Angela and Goliath emerging from their stone slumber, shards of stone flying all over the pages. The coloring really makes the city and backgrounds come alive. Even a simple scene outside Bellevue Hospital with reporters questioning Dracon is made more interesting by the bright rays of sunshine streaming through the panels. The final page with Derek confronting Xanatos was also very gripping.

Now the not so good. It was easy to excuse all of the exposition and setup in the first issue since it was the beginning of a new ongoing series that needed to lay the groundwork for a large cast of characters. But in this issue, it seems again that barely anything happens. We see, through a flashback, that Maggie was kidnapped, but the previous issue more or less teased this outcome for us already. I’m not sure how the New York City crime family drama is going to impact the overall story, but the issue spent a good amount of time on this side plot that really didn’t pique my interest. Hopefully we’ll be finished with the exposition and issue #3 can get on track.