The Argus #1 Advance Review
Action Lab Danger Zone 2020
On Sale March 4th 2020
Created & Written by Mark Bertolini
Created & Illustrated by Darryl Knickrehm
Time travel is real! Scientific prodigy Randall Patton has had a breakthrough that allows travel through the time-stream, which immediately led to the creation of The Argus, the temporal law enforcement organization that polices the time/space continuum. After an accident renders one of the members of The Argus insane, he begins killing off the others – except they are all versions of Randall Patton from various points in his own life! Who can stop Randall but himself?
I love what I do, I really do. Ironically Mark contacted me and asked if I would do a review for this book, which was already on my radar since I work with Action Lab. So the concept is pretty clear and as the book moves forward we see the pitfalls and consequences of what time travel can do even under the most auspicious of circumstances. I will say though that Future Man is a tad better. There is something Mark manages to do here that I think is extremely unique when it comes to storytelling and that is make us like and hate the same person.
The way that this is being told is really rather interesting. The story & plot development we see as the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is being told in a way that is incredibly easy to understand. I am serious while our young Randall may not quite understand that he's being told but the reader doesn't have the same problem. The character development we see here is phenomenal and I really am enjoying the way that the characters behave so differently from one another based upon life experience. The pacing we see is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way helps create a really good, interesting and complex ebb & flow to the story.
There are things to take away from this already but I am more interested in seeing how many of you find the same things as I have in this story. Through the layering and the different individuals arcs that are introduced we see a very unique dilemma happening. I am not a fan of one character here and I would also be interested to see if anyone is not a fan of this particular one as well. On the flip side there's one I am totally wanting to see delved into further and I am hoping that we get that chance.
Darryl's work looked familiar and it turns out that The Immortal was illustrated by him as well. His linework is utterly fabulous and the way he is able to utilised the varying weights to bring us this quality and level of attention to detail is what makes him so gosh darn good. While what we see makes the young Randall look like a lady throughout it kind of goes with how we see that character behaving and I am all for it. That splash page we see with what seems more like pencils than anything else is completely amazing! The backgrounds we see are a mixed bag as he clearly understands how utilise them though we don't see them enough. Still we have some interesting looks at depth perception, scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story as we see within the composition in the panels. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. I am also a fan of the muted palate of colour that we see here. This makes it harder in my humble opinion to work with and yet the way we see the hues and tones within the colours creating the shading, highlights and shadow work all the more impressive.
Y'all have time to order this and you really do need to. Action Lab Danger Zone has some of the best story's hitting stands and come March you'll understand why. Mark has crafted one of the most complex, layered and thrilling books that I have seen and it's an understatement to say it has me gobsmacked. It doesn't hurt that the interiors are mindbogglingly good either.