Valkyrie Saviours #1

Valkyrie Saviours #1

Antarctic Press 2021

Written by Ron Z

Illustrated by Gian Carlo Bernal

Coloured by Candice Han

Lettered by Josh Southall

An epic new tale in the Patriotika-verse, because some things in it are too big to contain in one series! College students by day, Kaiju-size Valkyrie warriors by night! Larissa, Valkyrie of the Tides, is the only one of Freja's forces who remains to fight the evil Zodiac gods! Can she find new recruits in time to stop them? Inspired by various manga and anime, Valkyrie Saviors has action, Norse Mythology, beautiful warrior maidens, comedy, and more!"

Well I do like this and it is exactly what ti’s billed up as and that’s pretty much a rarity these days. I found myself really enjoying this issue and while I’ve been enjoying the Partiotika series it only made sense to make sure this was on my reading list as well. Already what Ron has done is bring us reason, intrigue, drama and humour and he’s done it in ways that get you excited about what we’re reading. We meet the good guys and a few of the bad ones as well but more importantly we get the readers digest version of what’s up with the Gods and that even with a truce called there will always be someone or someones willing to skirt the issue and try their hand anyway.

I am very much enjoying 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 we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter is phenomenal in how it brings out their personalities. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, introducing the characters and this world to us we’re so engrossed, engaged and invested by the end of the issue.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. As the avenues open up for us and some are explored adding the main arc and others simply swirl around it they all add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. The way that everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceptionally well.

I love the interiors here. While babes in bikini armour aren’t really my thing I do really appreciate how we see the body proportions work amazingly well. The linework is strong, clean and crisp and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the detail work is really impressive. While backgrounds are lacking at times the composition of the panels and how we see depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story more than makes up for that. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered here. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a marvellous sense of how to effectively utilise colour for a maximum affect.

There is something interesting about what is happening here and about Larissa’s idea of finding new Valkyries to replace the ones that have been killed and it seems that we’re starting off with these young women. By my reckoning there are three that would fit the bill and depending on how many there are to replace it’ll be interesting to see how the long-term storytelling idea here gradually brings them into the picture.

With some solid writing and amazing characterisation alongside these stellar interiors I’d say that Antarctic Press has another great hit on its hands.