Before Ordon was a war hero and Fara took the title of Maudra, they both participated in a war against the Arathim. Come find out if they can find the Dual Glaive in the Major Spoilers Review of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance #2 from BOOM! Studios.

JIM HENSON’S THE DARK CRYSTAL: THE AGE OF RESISTANCE #2 (OF 12)

Writer: Nicole Andelfinger
Artist: Matias Basla
Colorist: Miguel Muerto
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Editor: Matthew Levine
Publisher: Archaia, an imprint of BOOM! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 30th, 2019

Previously in The Dark Crystal: The arathim are getting bolder and attacked Stone in the Wood. Maudra Vala’s plan was to send Ordon to the Caves of Grot to find the mythological weapon. However, Fala has snuck into Ordon bag to accompany him on his mission despite her youth and inexperience.

THE STUBBORN PERSONA

On the way to the Caves of Grot, Ordon is attacked by an Arathim. Ordon is a capable fighter but when Fala intervenes, Ordon takes a hit to save Fala’s life leading to him being poisoned. Ordon ignores his wound and moves forward to finish his quest but his wound and the poison has affected his ability to persevere. When they set camp, Ordon tries to show that this mission isn’t there to make Fala look good but to save their people. During the middle of the night, Ordon tries to sneak off but Fala wakes up suddenly and they get into a shouting match. This shouting match leads to a large rock monster to awaken as Ordon and Fala fall into a lake but is saved by a mystic.

A LITTLE CONFUSED

I had trouble keeping track of the story. The artwork itself wasn’t clear about what was happening in some of the scenes. For example, Ordon and Fala fall off the rock monster but it isn’t clear if they are swallowed or if they fell into water that was underneath the body of the creature. The writing had the opposite effect as Fala and Ordon had a similar conversation three times within the book. A conversation which consisted of Ordon trying to send Fala home and Fala saying that Ordon needs to rest because of the wound. In writing, you want to be careful not to give the same information over and over again. Sometimes it is good to remind the reader of the information they know but that is unnecessary to do so three times in a 23 page comic book.

The pacing also felt slow. We had a couple pages of action with the arathim but the tempo after that went to a standstill for the rest of the issue. If we reduced the bickering by our two characters we could have seen more content. Perhaps I believe too much in brevity but the book did not accomplished enough. A reader can likely skip this story and still be able to keep track of the larger context. Now I say this without knowing what the future issues contain but I feel confident in the statement regardless.

BOTTOM LINE: DISAPPOINTED AFTER A STRONG START

The book had such a good first issue that I found myself disappointed with the quality of this one. This series is 12 issues long and I hope that they aren’t trying to stretch a 6 issue story into 12 issues. Most mini series have a tendency to be fast paced and have too much information and it is interesting to see this book have the opposite problem. I want this series to do well because I enjoyed the Netflix prequel but I am losing faith after this issue. 2.5 out of 5 stars for this book from me.

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