Rook commands the birds. Dire Wolf commands the wolves. They’re both trying to evacuate, but it’s going to h be difficult to mobilize. Ursaw the bear warden has arrived and he’s in pursuit. It’s only a matter of time before things get vicious in Rook: Exodus #4. Writer Geoff Johns continues a tense action story with artist Jason Fabok and colorist Brad Anderson. The basic premise of the series continues to feel like a novel mutation of sci-fi/fantasy action dramas that have been echoing through the genre for decades. It’s a slickly appealing world  that Johns and Fabok have created and it continues to be fun into the fourth issue. 

If Ursaw gets into the facility,  he’s got access to the grid...if he gets access to the grid, he’ll be able to locate every warden on the whole planet. That’s not good. He’s already powerful enough as it is and he’s well on his way to controlling ALL of Exodus. (There’s a 200-word write-up on the grid in the back of the book.)  If Rook and his allies can’t hold the wildlife gird, things are going to get very, very bad for anyone looking to oppose him. Before they can deal with the bears, they’ve got some snakes and boars to deal with. What good are a bunch of wolves and a few birds going to be against a gigantic snake and a pack of enraged war pigs? 

Not everything about the issue is perfectly placed on the page. Some of Johns’ dialogue is actually pretty bad, but he does a superb job of developing the story in a way that flows quite naturally and maintains tension from beginning to end. There’s even a kind of a cool cliffhanger at issue’s end. Some of the basic gimmickry of a few techno-beastmasters feels a little cheap. Wolves aside, the stereotypically villainous animals are the villains in a story that tends to lurk across the surface of zoology without really getting into the substance of a world dominated by humans capable of controlling animals.

Fabok finds compelling ways to stage animal combat on the page without actually getting into a hell of a lot of graphic imagery. It might not be anywhere near as visual compelling as a nature documentary, but this isn’t PBS’ Nature and there’s no voice over by David Attenborough. It’s sci-fi action with animals and Fabok is handling admirably. 

As competent as it is with the basic action of the situation, there simply isn’t enough hard science in the series to make it terribly compelling as a concept. It’s good superficial action fun, but it could be SO MUCH more of Johns and Fabok were interested in getting a bit deeper into the science of the situation. The encyclopedic entries on The Wildlife Grid and the Warden Helms at the end of the issue do a pretty good job of going in the right direction, but the series could gain a lot from getting more seriously into wildlife biology. 

Grade: B