Okay, so, full disclosure again, these are mine, bought and paid for and this review might contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read this comic yet by Jen & Sylvia Soska with art by Débora Caritá, then you need to pick up a copy of this one quick. Read that before you read this review unless you just don’t care about spoilers because I’m going to be diving into this one again, just like I always have and telling you what the good, bad and ugly is on it.
This issue may be hot with a character this cold but you’re going to love it.
If you got a look at this trailer, you actually got a look into the pages of the book itself.
The trailer built my anticipation along with the opening moments of Isom #1.
I remember wondering just what Yaira’s problem was. Why was she beefing with Alphacore? What was it she had against Isom so badly that she had to hospitalize him, though that turned out to be a minor inconvenience.
Dr. Sally Rodell has been welcomed into a company called Projexus as an archaeologist. It seems her own studies, along with the research of Projexus go hand-in-hand, more importantly in the area of cryogenics.
Later on, we get the story of how she got tangled up with Alphacore and how Isom came to be involved. Yes, there was a parallel story happening which, I’m going to say it to some of you who keep buying only to complain, I told you so.
Let me digress for just a moment here.
I’m the Gen-X guy who would buy an issue, then have to wait a month for the next. Parallel stories were always a thing. They were used to set up crossovers with other titles, sometimes even between companies and still maintain the established structure and rules that had been set forth. No alterations were made without good reason.
I’ll cite an example. Wolverine’s canon includes his healing ability, his adamantium-infused skeleton, his claws and his tougher-than-a-coffin-nail attitude. His abilities were largely the same through the years I was reading him but, during the Fatal Attractions storyline (which was a huge crossover for the X-Titles, stemming from X-Men #4) he defied Magneto (Let’s be fair, he was crashing Illyana Rasputin’s funeral to recruit a despondent Colossus) and had his entire skeleton ripped from him for his trouble. After that, he reverted to a feral beast until Cable’s son tried to reinfuse him only for it to go horribly wrong on every level in Wolverine #50. You can see where I’m going with this.
I had to wait patiently for those issues and some of them, I never owned because I had to read issues that friends had.
Now we’re getting the equivalent of 4 of these single-issues packed into one and the complaint is that there are too many open ends. My question is, how else do you expect these books to be written? There must be loose ends and some unresolved conflicts or else, the characters and stories have no arc and you, as a reader, have no vested interest in reading the next one.
So Yaira’s first appearance in Isom #1 might have left me confused but I was more intrigued as to why she was there, what it was she was doing and what was going on.
Turns out, another woman began exhibiting the same powers as Yaira and she was involved with criminals during a robbery. This is the reason Yaira initially went after her. Once this kicks off, that’s when the action takes off. We meet celestial beings who honestly think that Yaira is the one who is going crazy with the ice powers. Yaira finds herself being opposed on so many fronts that I began to wonder how she could pull all of this off.
Yes, she’s a badass. Yes, she has a tendency to present herself as a bit overpowered, however, she does seem to have her abilities under control. This new Except doesn’t. She doesn’t know how or where she got the same powers that Yaira exhibits, they just happened. It’s akin to being something of a late bloomer in adolescence. The two celestial beings, Yanessa and Yantoni also seek to put Yaira out of commission, blaming her for the new Except bearing the same signature. Even Alphacore and the Florespark P.D. managed to get that this wasn’t Yaira but held the same power signature.
This was really one of a few issues that I have with this particular issue. These two god-like beings went all in on blaming Yaira but even when confronted with the new Except who’s power was manifesting, then they doubled down and claimed that Yaira was harboring an abomination. Meanwhile, Alphacore figured out “oh…this isn’t Yaira.” It’s a strange choice to me but, The Rippaverse being what it is, I’m almost certain this part is going to be a later story seed somewhere and we may actually get an explanation. Being fair here, we don’t know Yanessa and Yantoni all that well yet. We know Alphacore far better than we know these two so even though it’s an issue for me, it’s not a dealbreaker. As I’ve said before, if you keep tying up every loose end, there’s no continued story. Again, when Yaira first appeared, locked into combat with Alphacore and throwing Isom down onto a car, it was a moment where, we don’t know what the relationship is but in this issue, we have it more fleshed out. We have a better understanding of what’s going on. Rome…not built in a day.
That being said, I think I’m starting to see the columns slowly rising.
This new Except is named Stephanya Martinez and she’s attracting all the wrong kinds of attention. Mixed up in an armed robbery, it went wrong when her and her team didn’t account for another armed security guard and the shooting started. She managed to shoot one of the two while she was shot herself, all of her crew got killed and that’s when she began to mimic Yaira’s power and doesn’t seem in control of it.
Yanessa and Yantoni have a hideous creature named Magus Nuumite who seems to enjoy just being a creature of cruelty. After Yaira blows Yantoni and Yanessa to hell and gone by blowing up an oil derrick, they retreat, wounded to recover. After discussion, they allow Nuumite to resume the pursuit of Stephanya. Yaira visits Stephanya’s grandmother to talk to her, promising that she’ll protect Stephanya.
Unfortunately, for Stephanya, while she was hanging with other members of her crew that weren’t involved in the robbery, they were all arrested by Alphacore and taken into custody.
Magnus’ pursuit consisted of embodying a swarm of bugs every bit as hideous as himself and the stingers on the things are enough to pierce through glass jars.
During Stephanya’s interrogation by Brian Solari, Yaira breaks into the jail for the purpose of basically causing havoc and she does that with great aplomb. She frees every one of the inmates from their cells and starts a riot, snatching up Stephanya and taking off with her.
Yaira brings Stephanya to her own home in an attempt to provide a safehouse only to be met by Magnus’ swarm. Stephanya has an Urkel moment where, in her panic from the swarm attacking her, she kills all of the ones attacking her. Why is it an Urkel moment?
“Did I Do That?” was the line she used after she found that she had killed the bugs.
Magus Nuumite is discovered with Stephanya’s grandmother dead in his arms.
…ouch.
It’s here that I need to point something out.
Remember when I said this book was packed chock-full of action? I’m not kidding. There’s very little downtime. Little room to breathe as a member of the audience. For some of us, that’s what we sign on for. I’m actually part of that some. For others, it’s like “Wait, everyone take a breath and a moment and talk this thing out.” but that’s not what is going to happen here.
Having this much action from one set piece to the next, there’s extremes in character and reaction. They can go from (no pun intended here) hot to cold in very short order and the action means we may overlook things in the character development.
Up until now, Yaira has been almost needlessly confrontational, cold, combative and, while she can back up her every word, we don’t have a sense of where that comes from. From the onset, both her and Stephanya are a lot alike in that respect. Both of them have sort of a love/hate relationship with each other.
This book deals in extremes and it delivers by the truckload.
Please, don’t mistake the criticisms for something that comes across as a negative, it’s not. What’s clear is that the Soskas in their writing, and this is a net positive for me, have tapped into that 90s action and really went for it. Sure, it leaves some things behind but, as I’ve previously pointed out, loose ends are for later and I’m certain with this being only the first issue, we’re going to see much more.
As of right now, each of these first issues is building out the world, the rules and the setting in which the characters have to interact.
While these two characters may come off like the female protagonists that have been placed on our screens, in our books, etc lately, we’ve come to a part of the story where that’s not exactly so.
As mentioned before, Stephanya’s powers don’t manifest until she’s grazed by a gunshot herself. A punch from Yaira that would normally have killed anyone else doesn’t kill her but she had no idea why. She’s attacked by Magus Nuumite as she tries to get away from Yaira and she’s arrested and stuck in jail until Yaira breaks her out. Seeing her grandmother dead at the hands of Nuumite, she blames Yaira and thus, hauls ass, hating Yaira’s guts for it.
Then there’s the fight between Yaira and Nuumite and Nuumite royally decimates Yaira with his swarm, including an energy blast that should have very well killed her. Yaira makes her way back to Projexus in order to heal up. She knows she’s going to face Nuumite again but now she has to learn to trust one of her colleagues at Projexus, Altona, or at least accept help from her.
I know, a strong as hell female character with trust issues, just hang with me folks, patience, Grasshopper.
So Yaira has to utilize Projexus’ cryogenics program to slow her bleeding so that the massive blast wound can heal and on top of that, she’s been stung just about everywhere. It takes her a week to heal up from that attack. This isn’t just some “Okay, put myself on ice for awhile, now I’m good” D&D Long-Rest nonsense, they know that the swarms of what they’re calling beetles are stronger than anything and more venomous than anything they’ve ever seen before. Yaira tells Altona to use chrysanthemums in order to neutralize the venom on the beetles and tells her why. Altona’s quick to point out that team-ups are not Yaira’s strong suit.
Stephanya, meanwhile heads back to Alphacore only to make her team-up with Solari who’s apologetic and swears he’ll bring Yaira to justice for what she’s done.
This is why Alphacore is going to feature very prominently in The Rippaverse, because they deal in accountability, though Solari’s judgment at times has been less than stellar (see Alphacore Issue 1) but now, Stephanya’s changed her mind. She knows it was Magnus who killed her grandmother and Solari is asking Stephanya to trust him. While that discussion is going on, Braxwell still hasn’t spoken more than a grunt yet but he’s wearing a very stunned expression on his face because it’s action time again!
Yaira is outside. She’s calling out Yanessa, Yantoni, Nuumite, Alphacore and telling every one of them that she’s done running and she’s not playing around any further. She’s bound and determined to settle this once and for all.
It’s about to go down.
The melee is one colossal pile of misunderstanding. Remember when I said that the action set pieces practically move from one to the other with barely a breath in between? Yeah you need to breathe to communicate. So now, everyone is at each other’s throats. Yaira is attempting to explain to Stephanya what her grandmother meant to her as well, Stephanya won’t listen, Solari is encouraging Stephanya to not bother with Yaira and Alphacore, Yantoni, Yanessa, Magnus and Stephanya are locked into a snow-covered battle while Altona is at Projexus waiting for the solution Yaira advised to finally be finished. Once it’s ready, she unleashes it, causing death to the swarm of beetles that number in the millions. Bug hunts are especially good when the bugs come to a huge bug zapper, folks.
Yaira takes Stephanya back to Projexus to be taken care of and looked after by Altona.
Altona explains that Yaira doesn’t know how to talk to people and then we get why. Remember when I told you to just hang in there and have some patience, here’s where that pays off.
Stephanya’s grandmother related a story to Yaira earlier in the book about a goddess who fell to Earth and knew pain beyond that anyone had ever known and swore to never feel that again. Yaira was that goddess who fell to earth in Iceland, centuries ago. She was found by a man named Gorm, they fell in love, they had a life together and a family. She found that Gorm lived a full life. They only spent thirty-nine years together. In fact, her entire family lived, grew old and died. That included children, grandchildren and so forth but she never aged a day. That was the pain she promised to never feel again.
This is the moment of vulnerability that most characters lack.
The reason Yaira is good at what she does is because she’s essentially a goddess and she has had a boatload of time to really hone her abilities.
The reason that Yaira’s not all that good with communicating is she’s isolated herself after her entire human family died.
The reason that Yaira is angry is because losing her family has made her bitter and resentful.
So now you get all the reasons she is the way she is. Now, we have a much deeper understanding of everything about her presented so far and it makes sense. It’s not just that she’s extremely powerful and, more interestingly, Carmen (the grandmother) says that the stories were passed down from her ancestors.
It’s only when Yaira meets privately with Solari that the biggest reveal comes into play, Stephanya, Carmen and Yaira are all related.
If you thought this is where the action ends, you’re more wrong than the seafood platter at the end of Cast Away.
Yaira is off again, this time, back to Iceland where she calls out Yanessa, Yantoni and Nuumite. The problem here is that the cold exacerbates and amplifies their powers but Yaira has a plan and, after a fierce battle, she manages to make a volcano blow. She kills them all. That’s no bullshit. Then she realizes that in her willingness and desire to see Yanessa, Yantoni and Nuumite dead, the volcano is still erupting. She makes every attempt to stop it before being blown back and into the water. She’s just about ready to join her family past when someone under the water meets her and, for that, you will have to purchase a copy and read it. I’m not telling you anything on this one. In fact, I’ve purposefully left out important elements that are central to the plot here, so if you’re curious as to what I left out, pick up a copy.
There’s a bit more to the ending, what I wrote is not all but you will have to buy a copy to get the rest.
I know that some of you might be wondering what took this review so long. Well, there was a lot happening in this book…a hell of a lot. It needed to be laid out, read, re-read and explained from a Gen-X reader’s point of view.
Pros: Great 90s-level action. The designs are first-rate, the writing is awesome and fast-paced and every setup has a great payoff. Remember, some of these payoffs go back to Isom issue 1 and the continuity is in no way interrupted. Also, the artwork conveys the action so well that I could see it animate in my head. That’s something I haven’t really had in a long time.
Cons: The character development is there but there’s little of it and a lotta back and forth with Stephanya regarding her relationship with Yaira, it makes her look a little wishy-washy but at some point, that will be wrapped up but just not in this issue. I don’t consider this a deal-breaker in this particular book, though, it’s a setup that will be resolved later, I just thought that her constant back and forth needed to be truncated a bit to make it impactful and not so random. You’ll see why I say this when you read it completely through.
Favorite Part: It is difficult as hell to isolate one part in particular but picking one, it’s the backstory of her falling to Earth, falling in love with Gorm, marrying him, having a family with him, being accepted among his Icelandic community as a “gift from the gods” and us being taken through her entire family. It explained so much in such a short period of time. The ties to Old Norse Culture were what made this my favorite part.
Closing: Goodyng The Polymath is the next title on the way. Naturally, I ordered Covers A & C and will be reading and reviewing that as well. Then the news that The Soska Sisters, The Twisted Twins Themselves, will be writing Bloodruth (one of my favorite characters from Isom issue 2) and I’m hoping Débora Caritá will return for the artwork because I did love it quite a bit. If not, I’m confident that there will be a great artist ready to step into the role to convey the words that describe the action to the page itself.
Folks, The Rippaverse books just get better and better and soon, we’ll be getting the closing of The Ill-Advised Story Arc with Isom issue 3 but that won’t be all for Isom, which has me excited. I do recommend this just as much as I recommend Isom, Alphacore and other comics that I’ve been reading from independent artists and studios.
Thanks for reading, everyone, really thanks for hanging in there, I had no idea this review would take this long and I thank all of you for reading if you came this far.