Destiny, NY #1 and #2 // Review
Destiny, NY is written by Pat Shand, illustrated by Manuel Preitano, lettered by Jim Campbell, and published by Black Mask Entertainment. Destiny, NY is the story of Logan McBride, former Prophecy Kid, current directionless young adult.
In Logan McBride’s world, Prophecy Kids are special. Their entire lives revolve around the fact that they will one day fulfill their prophecy. But what happens when you already completed your prophecy? That’s what Logan McBride is trying to figure out. While she still attends Destiny University, the school for Prophecy Kids, she has no direction for her life anymore.
Everyone thinks she’s got no real purpose since she already fulfilled her prophecy. And to top off her existential depressive spiral, her ex-girlfriend just got engaged. And then, at the start of Destiny, NY #2, showed up at her apartment randomly. It’s not a great time to be Logan McBride.
Destiny, NY #1, does a lot. Shand introduces Logan both by explaining what’s going on and having some random other students speak about her. On one page, Logan has a few paragraph’s worth of dialogue explaining her backstory. If this were a novel, that would be fine, but for a comic, it just takes the reader out of the story. Showing the reader visually would’ve felt more natural.
The other important characters introduced in Destiny, NY #1, are Gia, Logan’s classmate and friend, and Lilith, Logan’s new romantic interest. While neither gets as much detail as Logan, they’re both interesting characters.
In Destiny, NY #2, things get more serious for Logan and Gia. Logan has a painful reunion with her ex, Bailey, and Gia confronts Lilith. But Shand tries to cram too much into one issue. The jumps between Gia and Logan’s storylines are rather jarring; there are no transitions. And when Shand does a flashback to Logan fulfilling her prophecy, it feels rushed and awkwardly placed. Logan is essentially dumping the entire story on Lilith, and it’s very text-heavy.
Preitano colors both issues of Destiny, NY, entirely in black and white. While this does lend to the distinct style of the comic, it can be difficult at times to distinguish between everything going on on the page. Preitano’s art focuses more on the characters, drawn in great detail, compared to the backgrounds, which are more simple and stylized. Sometimes this helps the characters stand out from the background, but there are more instances where it’s hard to separate the two. It feels like Preitano did not use enough different values of black and white in Destiny, NY.
It’s hard to read and follow the dialogue in Destiny, NY, both issues 1 and 2. Campbell’s letters don’t stand out well against the background. And often, it’s difficult to follow the placement of the speech bubbles and to make out who’s talking. Campbell does do a good job of mostly keeping the speech bubbles from cutting off the action in the panels, but that’s not enough to make up for the other issues.
The story of Destiny, NY, sounds straightforward. Logan is trying to navigate love and life with no sort of plan. Magic aside, what young adult can’t relate to that? Readers should be rooting for Logan to succeed, to find her place in a world that tells her she doesn’t belong anymore. And to some extent, I was rooting for her. Unfortunately, the art and lettering issues and the somewhat disjointed storytelling kept me from fully appreciating Logan’s journey.
