The Rumble's Profile

A pretty mediocre ending. This one just never had much to grab onto once you got past the novelty of pulpy adventure + noir. The noir stuff wasn’t even much of a factor by this issue and with no engaging characters it was just kind of a slog.

Loses me a bit towards the end when it starts to turn into generic sci fi action and focus more on the overarching war (not interested in that), but this is still one of the best issues of the series. This one always works better with a narrow focus and this did that quite well. Not trying to cram someone’s entire life into an issue and playing to Deniz’s strengths with some didactic but much need ed social commentary. more

I don’t know if Kyle’s humor is really suited to the long form like this. His miniseries and OGNs tend to be much tighter and end before the juvenility of the humor starts to wear too thin.

Pretty solid issue and a nice turning point for Poke. Maybe not the biggest fan of undoing the great development from last issue, but I liked this one better overall.

Just like with last issue there is far too much dialogue-free action that just doesn’t play to Sean Phillips’ strengths. His art works well for a stark, small-town southern noir like That Texas Blood, but not for something that is supposed to be this ambitious and exciting. I also think this sort of feels like the generic final act of a middling blockbuster, a lot of the mood of the early issues i s gone. more

Smiley is pretty annoying and I think the sincerity at the end didn’t quite land. Couple really funny moments though, especially Eddie praying his Dad doesn’t kill him while he’s shooting up Smiley’s goons.