Image Continues Strong Story with Lazarus #6

Published by Image Comics

Written by Greg Rucka

Art by Michael Lark

Colors by Santi Arcas

With this second installment to the second arc, we find ourselves focusing on two parallel stories. The first is a flashback to a young Forever Carlyle as she works her behind off to try to become the penultimate student in the scholastic and athletic sense, but the praise from her family never comes. The current story focuses on the children of the farmers whose land was wiped out by the recent storms and how the debt that they’re in forces them to have to give up their land and make the long trek through the badlands to Denver for the opportunity for their children to be taken in as Serf to one of the ruling families.

Rucka is juggling many characters and plot threads in this arc, but manages to highlight nearly everyone of importance and pushes (or in the case of Forever’s sister Johanna, nudges) their character forward. Some of the dialogue for the younger characters did feel a bit stilted, but still authentic enough to get across their naiveté, their rebelliousness and awkwardness.

Lark, while still reliable as ever, also struggles with the younger characters, looking more like smaller adults than children. But the level of detail that he brings to his environments as well as his choice of layouts and pacing have seemingly improved over the last arc.

Arcas doesn’t try to push the envelope here and that is a good thing. This was a very character-centric issue and the palettes used were just enough to evoke mood, but not distract from the character acting or action beats.

Minus a few hiccups, Lazarus continues to be not only one of Image’s most reliable books, but one of the best comics on the stands today. – 4 out of 5