Sea of Stars #3 // Review
A human boy rushes around in deep space quite unaware of how fantastic his powers are. While his father struggles to find him in another endearing pulpy space fantasy installment of Sea of Stars. Writers Dennis Hallum and Jason Aaron continue a space adventure drawn by Stephen Green. The story plays its weirdness so close to the surface of the story that feels a little forced. Were it not for the brisk pacing of the adventure, this might be a problem. Aaron, Hallam, and Green put a story on the page that is fun enough to overcome any issues with tone or thematic form.
Kadyn had been reluctant to go along with his father Gil on his long space trucking run. A kid inside a spaceship finds space to be a cold and dull place until he’s ripped from his father by chance and suddenly finds that he has great power. His ET pals are impressed but cautious as their newfound, little human friend is somewhat reckless with his apparent invulnerability to harm. Meanwhile, Gil has just been through a harrowing ordeal that has left him stranded with a security droid from a ship he almost managed to commandeer. Danger awaits as he finds himself and the droid surrounded by hostile life forms.
Aaron and Hallam are playing with interesting semi-traditional social dynamics between characters. The protective, pseudo-parental life forms looking after Kadyn are also being protected by the cosmic-level power that he unwittingly wields. Gil is dealing with low-level security not that’s still threatening him even though the ship it had been programmed to protect is no more. Classical social dynamics get juggled in a simple adventure story that continues to engage in spite of its pulpy early era sci-fi-inspired silliness.
Green’s art gives a theatrical perspective to all of the action shooting across the page. There’s a gleaming sense of wonder about the space adventure that openly embraces the weird pulpiness of the story. Some of the finer elements of dramatic intensity are lost in the impact of the action. Which is a pity given that the most unique aspect of the plot lies in the weird dramatic dynamics between the characters. The writers also hand Green a bit of a challenge with framing the action in this issue. It would be frustratingly difficult for any artist to frame the combat between tiny Kadyn and the ridiculously huge galactic Quark Shark. Especially in a way that vividly renders the absurdity of the size differential between the two. Green does his best, but the scale is challenging to capture with the speed the action shoots through the issue.
In its third issue, Sea of Stars amps-up its exuberant playfulness in a way that might be difficult to maintain in the long run. Given the more dramatic severe energies being explored in the previous issue, it’s clear that the team is willing to modulate the power of the action. Their challenge is going to be finding the right balance to keep action, drama, and whimsy from colliding into each other as the series progresses.
