Standstill #3 // Review
Ryker Ruel can stop time. He’s got this advanced piece of tech that can allow him to put the world on pause. Active usage of a device like that is going to put weird things into anyone’s head. He’s going to get weird ideas. He’s going to save some poor kid from getting hit by a bus. Then he’s going to kill a millionaire’s dog before popping on over to skid row in an expensive sports car in Standstill #3. Writer/colorist Lee Loughridge and artist Andrew Robinson continue a deeply entertaining social satire that slams on the gas as it approaches the big, crazy chaos of the middle of the series at the end of the next issue.
The kid was a bike in L.A. The bike didn’t make it. The kid did. Ryker could have saved the bike too, but he evidently wanted to teach the kid a lesson about caution. Later-on, he’s going to teach an entirely different person an entirely different lesson in caution as he uses his tech to make his way into the home of a reality TV superstar socialite. He’s going to take her money and throw it out to the homeless on skid row. Ryker’s lessons in caution might seem a bit more altruistic if he wasn’t so...careless about them.
There are a lot of interesting parallels between Ryker and the people that he’s interacting with. The madness of being so totally beyond the law on everything is something that’s clearly warping his ability to understand his own mortality. Loughridge is delivering a cleverly complicated exploration into the nature of cause and effect as Ryker slashes his way through the world on some kind of vendetta that can’t help but ultimately result in some serious consequences.
Robinson continues to orient the page horizontally to some beautifully cinematic effects The widescreen nature of the comic book allows action to slide across the page in long strips of highly kinetic drama. It’s sharp stuff that continues to look remarkably appealing. Robinson’s studied look at LA is given a great deal of depth and radiance by Loughridge’s colors. It’s all quite well-executed in a very appealing story that once again lends more than a bit of mystery to the unflappable confidence of a man who can stop time. The visual miracle of his ability continues to be drawn across the page with a brilliantly classy kind of subtlety.
There’s a showdown coming between Ryker and fate, but it’s kind of difficult to tell exactly where Loughridge is planning on taking it. There is a definite feel of a car wreck waiting to happen that would feel deeply satisfying at the end next issue. The only thing is: this is the third issue of an 8-part series. There are a lot of different directions that Loughridge and company could take the narrative in as the series reaches its mid-point at the end of the next issue. So much could happen with someone who can stop time.
