The action-filled Space Ghost #8 finally calls back to the main character’s tragic origin story first revealed in issue #2. At last, Space Ghost comes face-to-face with the evil tyrant whose robot army killed his wife and daughter. Although General Metallus may look a little goofy, this opening issue of a two-parter serves to show just how impossibly powerful he is.
As with nearly every issue of this sci-fi series, I enjoy this consistently well-made, entertaining comic. A big reason for that consistency is the creative team, which hasn’t changed at all so far. All eight issues have been written by David Pepose, drawn by Janathan Lau, colored by Andrew Dalhouse, lettered by Taylor Esposito and edited by Joseph Rybandt. Francesco Mattina has done every main cover (but not without a little controversy).
Courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment
The majority of Space Ghost #8 features Space Ghost battling either the robot army or Metallus himself – either flying through space or engaged in hand-to-hand combat. And it’s exactly in these action sequences that Jonathan Lau’s art shines. He’s so good at drawing Space Ghost in poster-ready, dynamic poses with his awesome bright yellow cape flowing. Thank you, again, Andrew Dalhouse for those bright colors. The fights are fast-paced with a mixture of close-ups and wide views as well as a variety of panel shapes and structures.
The story by Pepose, while entertaining, doesn’t do too much in this issue and tends to be a bit too predictable. As I mentioned above, it mostly establishes Metallus as an evil military tyrant bent on conquering the universe. A villain so powerful, there seems to be no hope of defeating him. But, most of his characterization – especially his dialogue – follows standard cartoon tropes. There is a stable consistency to the writing that remains entertaining, but I enjoyed the first issues of this series more than the past three. Maybe some things have gotten too obvious at this point.
Courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment
But I really wanted to talk about Taylor Esposito’s lettering, which has also been consistently good throughout the series – exemplifying just how well-made the series is as a whole. Well, this issue really highlights what makes Esposito’s lettering so good.
He once again uses differently colored narration boxes for different characters – an easy way to denote the different voices. Similarly, he changes to particularly mechanical looking word bubbles and font for the robots. Plus, whenever Space Ghost screams, the letters become large, stylized and bright yellow.
Then there are the sound effects – and there are a lot of sound effects in Space Ghost – from fthooming lasers to shzrakking energy beams, vooming space flight and tekking electrical sparks. Esposito changes the size, color and shapes of the sound effects, depending on how loud or what type of effect they are. In this issue, I especially enjoyed the long, drawn-out “Voooooooom” that follows Space Ghost’s curved flight-path. And my favorite has to be the semi-circular, “Vreeee,” appearing around Metallus’ outstretched hand as he charges up an energy beam right in Space Ghost’s face.
Courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment
With a simple, somewhat predictable plot, Space Ghost #8 may not be the best issue in the series so far, but it again displays just how consistently well-made and entertaining this book can be. The best part is once again Jonathan Lau’s art – especially during the many stellar action sequences. But Taylor Esposito’s lettering also stood out in this issue. Here’s hoping the creative team can stick together for a much longer run.
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