The Forged #9 // Review
Her Eternal Majesty, the Empress has drawn a gun. It couldn’t possibly look more graceful or distinguished. She pulls the trigger. A head opens up. There’s blood everywhere. All over the floor. It all looks so...elegant. There’s a circular table. Some very impressive-looking chairs. There’s a dead woman on the floor. Things are growing beyond the control of those in power in The Forged #9. Writers Greg Rucka and Eric Trautman continue their dense space fantasy drama with artist Mike Henderson and colorist Nolan Woodard. It’s a stylish trip to a dark future that continues to carry quite a bit of weight in its ninth chapter.
Elsewhere, a group of Forged teams are entering T-space to try to deal with the Phobes. Advanced tech is torn apart, blood is spilled. Huge luminescent teeth go to work. One of those bearing witness to the attack refers to the attack as popping her armor open like a beer can. This is really advanced tech and the hostiles don’t seem to be having very much trouble with it at all. They’re going to do their best, though. Residual energy from the T-space transit is pushed into blades for the energy blades as The Forged prepares for melee combat. This is going to get messy.
Rucka and Trautman have a lot of units to move around the field of battle with the ninth issue in the series. And though quite a lot of thought has clearly gone into the nature of this particular space fantasy combat, it's nowhere near as interesting as so much of the rest of the drama that surrounds it. And this is too bad as so much of the drama feels pretty solidly lost in the machinery of the plot. There isn't enough immediate impact in the political entry going on in the story to really register much of an impression. Her Eternal Majesty, the Empress manages to maintain her status as the single most interesting character in the entire series. The scene they have a for her in the ninth issue is really impressive.
Her Eternal Majesty deals with politics and strategy from a room that looks at once regal and Spartan. Clean lines and elegant chairs occupy a very dark space explodes with a sudden assault that result in the single most dramatic moment in the entire issue. And the science fiction action on the front lines brought the page with a competent sense of urgency and a kinetic power, it's nowhere near elegant, the visual realization of the scene involving Her Eternal Majesty, her gun and a homicide.
As much as there is going into a single issue of this series, it feels very incomplete. This is the nature of a serial to be sure. However, hey 60 page issue should feel more weight than this. it seems like the whole thing could be edited down or put into a family of related comic books all taking place in the same timeline or whatever. It just feels scattered to be comfortably crammed between the two covers.
