Thundercats x Silverhawks #2 is a book that really matters to people who are caught up on a story that isn’t being told in the clearest fashion. It continues the first issue’s trend of being pretty but new-reader friendly, of having bombastic moments that mean very little to new readers, and having spectacle moments that feel important but don’t amount to all that much because while things are happening, the context and significance around them continually falls short if you haven’t read the Thundercats ongoing, the Cheetara miniseries, the Thundercats Lost miniseries, and the Silverhawks book. I remember those titles coming out, and I have a base familiarity with the properties in question, but this issues fails to give me anything to care about.
So, as someone who’s not caught up, the weight of the immediacy is all I have to hold on to, and it’s just not there in any reliable fashion. There’s exciting looking action but it doesn’t mean anything. There’s significant changes to characters but they don’t mean anything because this world felt like it was in flux when it started and nothing has been established to make me think it’s that far out of the ordinary or that far removed from what would be happening in an ideal world.
The book is executed pretty well. Characters are expressive, dialogue is snappy and fast, the colors pop – no creative on this title is doing a bad job, but the experience itself is hollow and underwhelming to newcomers. This is a second issue but it might as well be a 56th issue of something because it’s so en media res at no point does it feel like a complete story, a similar problem to last month’s debut.
Nothing about it is unclear or confusing. The fights are well choreographed, what’s happening is clear and concise, but the why is lost to readers who haven’t been following from the start.
Panthro is still stranded on a satellite he doesn’t understand, the Silverhawks are still monitoring the situation, Cheetara and Darkbird are badass as hell when they fight, Lion-o is still de-aged but with all his memories; things are clear. What isn’t is why this story matters to people who aren’t already deeply invested in this universe.
The coloring by Igor Monti is great and one of the more popping parts of the book. The use of purple and its gradients especially feels fun when so much of the book is set against the barren and red Third Earth. While the character work by Drew Moss is fun, dynamic, and stylized, the backgrounds leave a little do be desired, and that’s where Monti really steps up and provides interesting colors that distinguish panels and add extra excitement to fights, and necessary distinction during the talking head panels.
Dynamite
Few things made me happier in the late ’90s than coming back from school and flipping to Toonami to watch reruns of Thundercats, and to a lesser extent, the Silverhawks. I like the world, I like the character design, and I like drama. While this book carries a lot of those elements, and does it with relatively high degrees of execution, the point of the book still isn’t clear.
It feels like an old comics trope where two heroes who don’t know they should trust each other have to duke it out before they find a common enemy. This has elements of that, but also like it has little interest in doing anything besides smashing your two favorite action figures against each other and telling you it’s for the best. Despite being underwhelmed two issues in, I want to stick with the series because I trust the talent involved, but more interesting things need to happen, or a why for things happening needs to present itself pretty quickly to maintain my interest.
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