Comic Review: Lightstep #3

Lightstep #3

Dark Horse

Writer & Artist: Milos Slavkovic

Dark Horse’s third installment of this space opera explores Hope Harbor, a planet whose citizens believe the end is nigh. Like January’s home planet, Hope Harbor is also surrounded in religion and houses a heavily armored priest and several gargantuan alien-like statues that haven’t moved in centuries.

Dark Horse’s preview of this issue begs the question, “…how does this relate?” I hope I learn the answer by issue #5.

This issue immediately throws us into an alien-led terrorist attack at a radio station on earth, which might be connected to Jazzman’s radio pirating. If not, I’m not sure how this is all connected. A couple pages later, January Lee and Jazzman head to Hope Harbor. Here, Jazzman has his own agenda in which he does not plan on divulging his reasoning.

Every society this series has visited so far seems to be brainwashed by the higher powers who hypocritically teach purity to their citizens. Could this series be a comment on religion?

The first issue of the series involved plenty of context and was easy to follow, but the story got pretty complicated somewhere between issues #2 and 3. Nonetheless, I can tell writers Milos Slavkovic and Mirko Topalski have worked hard to employ jargon and technology unique to their world.

January’s dream phases was one major area I found kept getting lost in. One compelling part of the plot is that January’s dreams allow her to either see things truthfully or in the future. Maybe both?

Slavkovic, who also does art and colors, paints an alluring portrait of each new world in the galaxy. Although the cover screams art deco, this style is not overwhelmingly apparent in the rest of the issue’s art. Both the art and colors are vivid and clean, and every panel is detailed. Some of the action is hard to follow, though.

Lightstep is taking a fresh approach to a genre that has seen plenty of success in both the comic and film world. I just hope the story becomes a bit more cohesive and understandable.