Comic Review: The Life and Death of Toyo Harada #2

The Life and Death of Toyo Harada #2

Valiant Entertainment

Writer: Joshua Dysart

Artist: Mico Suayan & CAFU

For fans of Imperium and Harbinger, The Life and Death of Toyo Harada casts an illuminating light on a notorious villain of the Valiant Universe. However, for those unacquainted with the characters and motives presented in this issue, it often feels meandering and burdened by explanatory dialogue.

Story:

The story in this issue jumps around between the past a present. The first presented is the past. Harada’s first ever patrol. As a god or demi-god, he has taken control of a pirate vessel as a young man. He has promised the crew that they are starting something that will change the world. In the present day, Harada and his zealous army of followers have almost completed a space elevator that will lead to a ring of alien space junk. Said space junk may contain technological marvels compared to human technology. There’s also some tension between Harada and his alien colleague, Angela. She wants a human baby factory. Yeah. A human baby factory. . .

While the plot moves along at a brisk pace and there is certainly tension, this reader had some difficulty in its pacing. This is due to the different time frames this issue functions in. Neither feel fleshed out enough to maintain verisimilitude and the result feels rushed.

Characters:

Some readers of the Valiant Universe comics will certainly know and enjoy these characters. However, without context theses, characters seem overly explanatory in their dialogue and actions for the sake of new readers. Despite this explanatory nature, I never felt as though I knew the motives behind Harada, Angela, or any of the others. They all have overly idealistic and simplified ideas of how the world works and how it could be better. Furthermore, all of the characters lack depth in the sense that they all say exactly what they mean. People rarely do this in real life, and so the characters in this story, aliens, gods, monster–whatever, don’t feel relatable. And even monsters need to be relatable–even if that’s just terrifying.

Art:

The art of this piece is fine. Just fine. As a fan of more impressionistic and atmospheric art, I see this style as art that gets the job done, tells the story–but doesn’t seem to stretch the way readers see the world. Often artists seek to portray the world around the characters as the characters themselves see the world. This comic-art style doesn’t feel like this. Instead, it feels like an omniscient viewpoint, without the taint of a character’s philosophical lends.