Free Planet #2 // Review
Commander Gloria Sunandez is angry. She’s dealing with a lot. Dual galactic threats. Domestic unrest. Fractious troops and a host of other concerns. She’s managed to harness the forces of the entire planet of Lutheria, but there’s a hell of a lot of chaos still to be dealt with in Free Planet #2. Writer Aubrey Sitterson continues a sci-fi political drama with artist Jed Dougherty and colorist Vittorio Astone. Though the details of the drama threaten to overpower its overall impact, Sitterson manages to tell a very meticulous tale in a way that still manages to be a great deal of fun.
A big source of stress comes in the form of a man named Jackson Crater. He’s been granted asylum, citizenship and membership in the Freedom Guard. Sunandez calls him a terrorist. Those who have granted him asylum call him a political refugee. Is he going to help instill peace on Lutheria, or is he there for something else? Regardless of what his intentions are, he’s not going to be well-trusted by those who are working with him. He’s killed families in the name of his ideals. That’s not going to sit right with many of his newfound colleagues.
It’s really, really easy to dismiss a whole lot of what Sitterson is doing as unrestrained world building. So much of it feels like long exposition and backstory amidst grim people standing around in futuristic militaristic office spaces. And that IS a lot of what the second issue of the series is. When Sitterson finally settles-down to the central conflict of the issue, it actually feels pretty compelling. The big challenge with anything of this nature is to find the right balance between the action in the foreground and all of the backstory. As it is, Sitterson hasn’t quite found the right balance as of the second issue.
Dougherty has a very clever hand with overall layout. The script seems to be giving the artist a great deal of complexity to try to present on the page in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelmingly cluttered. Overall, Dougherty DOES manage a very fluid narrative momentum even amidst all of the heavy world-building going on throughout much of the early going of the issue. In addition to this, Dougherty hits a few major moments of action with the right amount of percussion on the page. Astone lends a lush texture to the visuals with some remarkably well-rendered color.
All issues with the issue aside, it’s really, really apparent that Sitterson has developed a dizzyingly thoughtful and well-constructed science fiction world that feels deeply immersive in the background of the central action. As tedious as it can be at times, it’s kind of breathtaking to read this kind of richly-conceived fantasy. There’s no questioning that SIterson has has hundreds and hundreds of footnotes written about every single bit of dialogue and narration in the entire issue. It’s remarkably dense stuff, but it’s fun to dive into.
