Comic Review: The Visitor #2

The Visitor #2

Valiant Entertainment

Writer: Paul Levitz

Artists: MJ Kim & Ulises Arreola

The Visitor #1 took an old Valiant character and revived them with a new political thriller. While the concept of a “terrorist” bringing down world leaders and organizations is interesting enough, the first issue struggled with poor pacing, uninteresting characters, and poor dialogue. Does the second chapter in this five-issue miniseries correct the debut’s shortcomings?

The second issue of The Visitor is much more exciting as the action starts to build up. The main characters are stuck in a constant chase in an effort to evade the titular character. Writer Paul Levitz makes up for the crawling debut issue with this one, though it still isn’t as exciting as other Valiant titles. Levitz attempts to balance intrigue with action, covering the series up with tons of mystery. While this should work, there just isn’t enough here to fully hook the reader. By itself, The Visitor #2 is just another issue that falls just short of being great.

All of this aside, it does seem that the miniseries is headed in the right direction. The mysterious hunter is more interesting than I initially thought, with some unexpected characterization present in this issue. The shady characters are full of cliches but have enough mystery surrounding them to keep readers engaged. All of the characters make human mistakes throughout the issue making all of this believable, but some stiff dialogue at times will remove the reader from the narrative. The Visitor has a lot of interesting pieces but just fails to put them together in a cohesive and immersive way.

The Visitor‘s art shares a lot in common with other Valiant titles, fitting in neatly with the publisher’s house style. Even still, MJ Kim makes this one of the Valiant’s better-looking titles, with neat lines, expressive faces and detailed environments. Some of the characters have some strikingly similar features in a way that they shouldn’t unless they are related, but otherwise, everyone looks great. The story and action flow well across the panels with excellent sequential art. Ulises Arreola’s colors add depth to the pencils and inks, making this a nice book to look at.

The Visitor #2 is an improvement but still doesn’t do enough to captivate the reader. The next issue is likely to start with a bang, so we might see a few positive changes next month. This isn’t a bad read, just don’t expect anything spectacular.

Click For More Comic Book Reviews