Jace has been dealing with kind of a lot lately. He’s been following around a galactic vigilante. He and his sister are a close family. But he did something that he doesn’t want to have to remember. And so he can’t really help out with the team. Doesn’t really know how. He’ll find out that things are a lot more complicated than they appear on the surface in Space Ghost #6. Writer David Pepose and artist Jonathan Lau continue a sophisticated look at, and I will do for hero from Saturday morning cartoons. The latest issue gets into some pretty dark territory pretty quickly.

Jace killed someone. He’s never had to do that before. He’s a really young kid. The victim in question was a villain.Brake left Jade no choice and Space Ghost wasn’t able to do anything about it. Naturally, Jason doesn’t feel really good about the whole situation. He doesn’t feel good about going back and look at the old fighting evil. Because there’s no questioning what kind of evil he’s leading to himself. People are counting on the heroes to do the right thing. But the house does he know that he’s doing right?

Paposi has an ingenious way of simplifying complexity to a point where it shines through on its most fundamental level. Basic elements of heroism and criminality are explored in a very simple and concise fashion. That relief just enough room to question the nature of heroism. The language is clear and simple. There’s no subtle complexities or intricacies in it. It’s just simply delivering a very clear and coherent question about the nature of morality.

Lau has a sketchiness about his artwork that continues to obscure the strengths of the script. The action is perfectly well rendered. And there’s some really powerful moments on the page. However, the sketchy rendering of so much of the Earth makes it all feels just a bit too hazy to be quite as powerful as it needs to be. There’s really a delightful complexity about the script and it’s nice to see the artwork drawing the cel animated simplicity of the original cartoon into a dark room or shadowy place. It’s quite impressive. However, a bit of a stronger Fidelity to clean our lines might serve the script just a little bit better.

The idea of taking something which was essentially very light and simple on the TV screen ages ago, and turning it into something far more complex. It’s a very noble gesture. However, this sort of thing has been done often enough that it might need a little bit more before it can really develop into something truly unique. The space fantasy of the action is really well captured, and there’s a high Fidelity to the overall nature of that sort of thing. However, this particular iteration of the character really needs a little bit more depth in order for it to be able to do what it really needs to do and live up to its potential.

Grade B-