Battle Chasers #10 // Review
Red Monika is alone at Garrison’s place. She’s a fugitive. She’s been followed. Garrison shows up and tells her that they BOTH have to get moving. They’re both on the run in Battle Chasers #10. Writer Joe Madureira keeps everything flowing across the page with gorgeously kinetic art by Ludo Lullabi. There’s been a bit of a hiatus between the ninth and tenth issues. (The last issue was released a couple of decades ago in 2001.) Madureira’s return to the series looks good, with a brisk pacing that feels remarkably bracing and intense. It’s nice to see a return to the old adventure. It feels like it never vanished.
They’re after Monika, but they need her alive. They need her alive because they need Garrison alive. They’re bounty hunters--a group of Martial Paladins led by the Maestro. The overwhelmingly powerful mass of warrior known as Grave wants Garrison dead before the sun rises on the next day. Monika and Garrison are formidable warriors, but the Martial Paladins are working with a beast master who can see through the eyes of any animal in the forest and can possess and control it. Monika and Garrison have their hands full just trying to survive.
The last issue came out in 2001. Madureira picks up the series more or less where he left it 22 years ago. Issue #9 had a cliffhanger ending that hasn’t been resolved for over 2 decades. That has got to be one of the longest waits for a straightforward narrative follow-up in the history of pop fiction. The wait seems to have done the narrative well. Madureira has tightened up his pacing on the series considerably. Though it’s kind of difficult to tell with the issue being an extended action sequence, it really feels as though Monika has become a stronger character between issues as well.
Madureira’s artwork on the original series echoes into the new one a couple of decades later. French artist Ludo Lullabi has a style that matches the series quite well. The rendering, action delivery, page layout, and feel of Lullabi’s style fits Madureira’s. The action is crushingly beautiful in places. The overall layout makes it seem like a very natural follow-up to an issue that came out in 2001. Put issue #9 and issue #10 next to each other and one would be forgiven for thinking that they weren’t published one year apart.
It’s a more or less seamless extension of the series that was abandoned two decades ago. Madureira and company are picking it up like the last 20 years didn’t even happen. There’s an almost heroic level of integrity in that faithfulness to the original series. It’s a quick, breezy jaunt from beginning to end. Monika and Garrison return in a thoroughly enjoyable adventure that will hopefully lead to a series that runs much longer than the original one. Madureira and company have firmly resurrected a series that didn’t appear to have any chance of ever returning to the comics rack.
