Radiant Black #3

Radiant Black #3

Image Comics 2021

Written by Kyle Higgins

Illustrated by Marcelo Costa

Lettered by Becca Carey

Okay, that's it. Nathan's getting down to business today: he's finally working on his novel. All he needs is some solitary writing time—no "helpful" parents, no superhero social media, and definitely no alien voices beaming an unintelligible language into his brain. That's not too much to ask for, right?

There are trends that we don’t see enough of and “A Day In the Life” is one of those. It is a great way to get some stupendous character development in as well as allow us into the personal life of the main character as well as the supporting cast of characters to be shown and expanded. All the while Kyle also manage to keep the story moving forward so that it all ties together perfectly. The advantage of doing this here is that it gives us a chance to see Nathan come to terms with not only having moved back in with his folks but acclimate to the idea of having these powers and his life in general. So what’s a guy to do when he wants to write but he’s got way too much on his mind? I would go with better living through chemistry, medication, to streamline the thoughts but Nathan and I aren’t anything alike.

I am a fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. The character development that we see is fantastic and the more interaction between Nathan and his dad the more we see their relationship redefined and it is the kind of thing that guys dream of, fathers and sons reach a certain stage where it’s possible to be friends and we’re seeing that happen here. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of Nathan’s life it becomes easier and easier to relate to and connect with.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story take what’s come before and put a sharper focus on them. The realisations we see him come to are so well achieved and executed. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is really rather quite well achieved.

I am a fan of the interiors here. The linework that we see is laid down exceptionally well and with the varying weights being utilised to create this level in the detail work is extraordinary to see. With the composition within the panels that we see how backgrounds are being utilised or the lack thereof makes complete sense to me. Granted I would like to see more of them but with the depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scale that they bring to the story already could just use a little bump. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The colour work we see is beautifully rendered as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a fantastic understanding of how colour works. Also seeing dad’s sweatsuit with those white strips manage to really make some unexpected moments pop as well.

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Kyle is one of today’s most underrated writers and this book is smart, intelligently written and showcase the myriad of subtle nuances that go into making such a layered and complex story feel simple.