Imperial #2 Is Too Fast Paced for Its Own Good (Review)

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Hickman has proven to be one of the better pure sci-fi writers in comics, and that talent is on display in this issue right from the word go. This issue is a bit of a cluster, as the various alien empires falls into the chaos of war. Hickman understands how to do big space actions scenes like this very well, capturing the chaos of multiple ships going after each other. There’s a velocity to these scenes that sets the tone for the battle well. However, if there’s any problem with it, it’s there is too much going on for a story this fast paced. Now, obviously, this makes sense for the scene, and readers were promised sci-fi action from Imperial, but there’s also a lot of sides to this battle, and it can be hard to really get a bead on what’s going on in this comic. The chaos and fast pace makes sense, but they can leave readers feeling a little breathless. There’s a mini Black Panther/Hulk fight in this issue that’s pretty cool, but it doesn’t really get the focus it needs to be as entertaining as it could be.

The cuts between scenes keep the whole thing moving along, but there’s a terminal velocity to the issue that hurts each individual part. There are a lot of sides in this battle, and that’s a bit of a problem. Hickman showed in books like Infinity that is able to juggle big space battles well, but that story had one side against another — the allies and the Builders. This battle has Shi’Ar, Kree/Skrulls, the Spartans, and the Wakandans, and it kind of feels a bit too stuffed at times. This can make it hard to figure out which parts of the battle are important. We finally get the long promised coup against Professor X’s daughter Xandra, but it’s obviously there to set-up the spin-offs miniseries. As the battle goes on, it can all start to feel like white noise after a while.

The art by Federico Vicentini and Iban Coelle is good, but it doesn’t really fit the story at times. While both of them are quite good at action penciling, and this is an action packed issue, they’re good at superhero action scenes. Other than the battle between Black Panther and Hulk and a twist to the battle that happens later, there’s really not too much of that in the issue. Space action scenes, with fleets of ships attacking each other and maneuvering, can be really hard to make look well in the comic medium, and this issue shows the difficulties with that sort of thing. Everything feels a little too static, and that robs a lot of scenes of any tension or excitement. On top of that, the ship designs aren’t the most interesting out there and it’s kind of hard to tell whose ships are whose in the fight as it goes on.

The art isn’t bad, per say, but this issue’s action set piece is very complicated, and the art doesn’t really fit what’s going on. Coello and Vicentini both gets moment to shine at last, but the sci-fi war sturm and drang is the weakest part of the art. The two artists do their best to make this part of the book exciting — the pages are detailed and their lay outs move the action along well — but Coello and Vicentini just aren’t the right artists for this sort of story. This is a big problem, and it’s one that probably isn’t going to get much better as the book goes on, because this is almost certainly not the last time we’ll get a space battle in this series.

Imperial #2 does its best to give readers some action, but there’s just so much going on and the art doesn’t really fit the issue’s events. Hickman redefined what space battles could be in Infinity over a decade ago, but this issue shows sometimes that not every artist can make them work. This isn’t a bad issue by any stretch of the imagination, but it never really finds its flow. The pacing is too fast, and that can keep the issue’s events from really hitting readers like they should. Imperial was always going to be a tough sell, and the second issue puts into question whether this book can be everything it was promised to be.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Imperial #2 is on sale now.