Life finds a way.
The end of the dinosaurs: no extinction-level event has fascinated us more than this one, and as the success of Jurassic Park shows, we love our big, sauropodian forbearers. James Farr and Jon Sommariva put their own stamp on what happened and give us some awesome action to boot. Mixing Dinosaucers and Bucky O’Hare, this book is what eight-year-old me would have clamored for.
64.9 million years ago is where we begin, and the last of the dinosaurs (or as they call themselves, Disaurs) are loading into a refugee ship to escape a terrible danger. A sacrifice is needed, and our hero, Kelvin, is left behind, frozen in time. Being woken up 64.9 minutes from now (I love this; the symmetry is fun, and it’s so 20XX Megaman-style goodness.), we are taken on an awesome sci-fi journey that mixes great tech, fun characters, and explosive action. This is the kind of toy box-spanning adventure that I grew up on and satisfies in almost every way. Some explanations are a little light, like how a modern girl can understand the dinosaurs’ language, and the frozen in time stuff makes a few “if this survived, then why wouldn’t this?” moments, but these are like silly, little street signs whizzing by while you dive back into the fun.
Jon Sommariva makes some pretty, pretty things to look at. All of the characters are beautifully designed, each one unique and wonderfully expressive. The crew of misfits seems to fit with each other perfectly, and it’s just the kind of ragtag bunch that makes us long for Firefly and Red Dwarf. The scenery is massive and intoxicating at times, and we’re never left short on action and suspense.
The hook for me is certainly the characters; this team manages to extrapolate stock characters and give them a real vibrancy. Their roles seem similar, but the players are unique and wonderful and make this whole thing really cook. The dialogue is tight and full of silly awesomes, and the composition of these panels shows the true magnitude of this band of goofs and makes it something that’s worth a good amount of time and a great amount of laughs.
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