Time Before Time #24 // Review
Verna Grace has had a hell of a time tracking down the Syndicate. She finds a way to get their attention. There’s a meeting. She wants to go back in time to August 8th, 2123. They ask her if there was a particularly nice sunset that day. It’s probably never a good idea to send people back when they’re asking for a specific date. Writers Rory McConville and Declan Shalvey take some time out from bigger issues and ongoing stories in Time Before Time #24. The one-shot story is brought to the page by artist Will Morris and colorist Chris O’Halloran.
Verna Grace wants to go back in time to save the lives of her wife and son. It’s really just that simple. There’s no way in hell that the Syndicate is going to let her try to do that. It never works. She’s not going to take “no” for an answer. She’ll find a way to get back to August 8th of 2123. And when she does, they’ll have a hell of a time getting ahold of her. The heart wants what the heart wants. Time doesn’t work that way, though. Time has a way of breaking the heart.
McConville and Shalvey construct a remarkably concise, little one-shot that actually serves as a really good jumping-on point for anyone not already familiar with the series. The Syndicate is revealed in shadowy legend before gradually finding its way into the foreground. Verna Grace is delivered to the page as an interesting character who seems very well-rendered in spite of her relatively limited time on the page. The climax to the story does feel a little anticlimactic, but everything that leads to that end is satisfying enough to overcome the bizarrely insignificant detail of a reasonably unsatisfying ending.
Morris doesn’t bother with a whole lot of details around the edges of the central drama. It may be 100 years into the future, but everything feels more or less perfectly mundane. Fashion is ever so slightly shifted, but any distraction of the world around the central characters stays pleasantly in the background as the central drama is thoughtfully rendered by Morris in the foreground. O’Halloran opts for a subtle, conservative approach to the colors, which casts a contemplative mood over page and panel throughout a captivating and compelling one-shot story. Nothing fancy. Nothing tricky. Sometimes the best art is that which merely allows the story to resonate on the page.
McConville and Shalvey move things around very, very quickly in a one-shot that could have easily taken up the space of its own supporting mini-series. There’s no question that Verna Grace could have been a much more captivating character if she had the opportunity to move around a bit more in and within the plot. As it is, the broad strokes that the character is given feel more or less perfect for the amount of story that she has. It’s a very well-paced issue.
