Let me recap this series so far for you. In short there is an alternate Earth with a group of Super-heroes called the ‘Olympians’ whose foe is Brainchild and his army of monster type things. The Olympians failed to survive their last battle with Brainchild, leaving this alternative Earth with no heroes. Back in our universe, there is a group of actors who play the Olympians in a series of ‘Hollywood’ movies. Something happens at the premiere of their latest movie and what appeared to be a stunt robotic monster actually was a real one which had crossed dimensions, and the actors then find themselves crossing dimensions too. Once across they are asked to ‘play’ the real Olympians in order to negotiate peace with Brainchild and save that universe from further destruction and subsequently the actors can return to their world.
This is a solid premise and so far has been quite enjoyable with Bryan Hitch seemingly having complete understanding of his characters. This issue kicks off exactly where #2 ends with the FauxOlympians falling to their death and this sequence was really depicted well artistically but the writing was really annoying to be honest. It just seemed to be a lot of one-word or two-word phrases being shouted over and over again, repeating the same thing. And then all of a sudden composure is regained and they realise the suits that they are wearing is what contains the power of the Olympians and they each try to channel their roles. Following their obvious survival from the fall, who would have guessed, instead of teaming up and defeating the monster which caused them to fall from the skies in the first place they go off their separate ways leaving ‘The Olympian’ to handle the monster by himself. I was really shocked by this part of the story and really impressed with Hitch veering away from a classic superhero story of a team-up.
Back on the ship, Brainchild reveals to the other two FauxOlympians still on the board, that he knows who they really are and where they are from, and that he came to the ship after the broadcast from a previous issue to accept the offer of peace. Now you would think, Evil Genious Villian!! Must be a double-cross soon, and surprisingly there wasn’t one which just like the lack of team-up earlier in the issue I also found this surprising and freshly exciting.
There are more developments in the story from the characters back on earth after they split up such as Olympian surviving and then retreating to his ‘Home’ to find a nice surprise. Two of the others acclimatising to their new powers and lastly we have The Patriot hitting up a bar getting into a fight.
Overall, this was quite an enjoyable issue. The stand out strengths of this is the significant amount of action and the book looks very nice in my opinion, I am really impressed with how the look of the book has been so consistent in all 3 issues so far and it is a testament to Hitch’s great artwork. There are some parts of the writing which is a little contrived and doesn’t really flow, but overall it is a very good premise for a comic book. What Hitch has done really well in this series so far is his ability to make detours from the main narrative for character development and this really allows you to connect to the characters quickly. I think this issue sets out perfectly what a superhero story aims to achieve, its reveals enough information to make us intrigued while also it pushes the story forward to set-up what will happen next in its conclusion.
