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A review by strykers_tale
Savage by B. Clay Moore
3.0
I don’t have much experience with Valiant titles, but this is a fun volume that is complete with killer dinosaurs, strange magical portals, and hostile groups of marooned travelers. Think Lost but with a little less teasing and way more violence. Keep this one away from the kiddies.
The story starts off with a wealthy family being stranded on a tropical island after their private plane crashes nearby. The main character is just an infant at the time of the crash, but each subsequent book in this volume starts with a flash forward to a different stage in his rise to adulthood while growing up and surviving on the island. However, the bulk of the volume covers how the family came to this place, how they survived those first few years there, and some clues as to what brought them there in the first place. This type of flashforward and flashback storytelling can often be clumsily executed, but Moore writes it well and played the current and past stories off one another expertly. This narrative style is also given an assist by the art of Henry and LaRosa who tag team this title to provide their own unique style to the two timelines that are present to provide even more separation.
As was mentioned in the illuminating creator notes that bookend each of the four books contained in this volume, Moore enjoys silent storytelling through the artist. This means that there are often pages with little to no dialogue with only the art to keep the narrative going. While this lack of dialogue might mean you speed through this volume a bit faster, the storytelling doesn’t falter and the artists hold the narrative together very well.
The story itself isn’t a new one from the outset and you get the feeling that you’ve read or watched this before. Around the third book, things start to get more interesting and it’s revealed that this isn’t just a contemporary take on The Lost World with the sprinklings of a Lost rehash. It brings some interesting ideas to the table and enough unanswered questions to tease the next volume; however, the number of unanswered questions that might frustrate some.
As an adventure book, it certainly reaches its goals, but I found the characters lacking. While this might be due to the inclusion of only four book in the volume, the motivations of the villains in this story are completely absent and I still don’t know much about our main character. Despite this criticism, I do have the feeling that the next volume in this series will expand on these gaps. As a work that lays the groundwork to an interesting story, I think this volume succeeds; however if you are looking for a character-driven story at this point you might be better looking elsewhere until some more materials lands.
The story starts off with a wealthy family being stranded on a tropical island after their private plane crashes nearby. The main character is just an infant at the time of the crash, but each subsequent book in this volume starts with a flash forward to a different stage in his rise to adulthood while growing up and surviving on the island. However, the bulk of the volume covers how the family came to this place, how they survived those first few years there, and some clues as to what brought them there in the first place. This type of flashforward and flashback storytelling can often be clumsily executed, but Moore writes it well and played the current and past stories off one another expertly. This narrative style is also given an assist by the art of Henry and LaRosa who tag team this title to provide their own unique style to the two timelines that are present to provide even more separation.
As was mentioned in the illuminating creator notes that bookend each of the four books contained in this volume, Moore enjoys silent storytelling through the artist. This means that there are often pages with little to no dialogue with only the art to keep the narrative going. While this lack of dialogue might mean you speed through this volume a bit faster, the storytelling doesn’t falter and the artists hold the narrative together very well.
The story itself isn’t a new one from the outset and you get the feeling that you’ve read or watched this before. Around the third book, things start to get more interesting and it’s revealed that this isn’t just a contemporary take on The Lost World with the sprinklings of a Lost rehash. It brings some interesting ideas to the table and enough unanswered questions to tease the next volume; however, the number of unanswered questions that might frustrate some.
As an adventure book, it certainly reaches its goals, but I found the characters lacking. While this might be due to the inclusion of only four book in the volume, the motivations of the villains in this story are completely absent and I still don’t know much about our main character. Despite this criticism, I do have the feeling that the next volume in this series will expand on these gaps. As a work that lays the groundwork to an interesting story, I think this volume succeeds; however if you are looking for a character-driven story at this point you might be better looking elsewhere until some more materials lands.