The Quarter Bin

Another issue of one of last year’s Pilot Season winners hit shelves last week. The question is, was Cyblade #2 a gift under the tree, or coal in the stocking?

Cyblade #2
Writer: Joshua Hale Fialkov
Artist: Rick Mays, Lee Ferguson, Afua Richardson
Cover: Rick Mays

While the first issue didn’t exactly impress me, it intrigued me enough that I was looking forward to the second one. Sadly, after reading through the book, Fialkov and Mays just aren’t doing enough right to keep me interested.

Picking up immediately after the events of the first issue, readers are greeted with a brief flashback, and then it’s right back to naked Cyblade fighting in her bathroom. I was hoping to see some improvements from Rick Mays, and there were some. This issue was much more consistent than the first, and while his layouts are actually pretty solid, there are still times his characters just don’t look right. Cyblade in particular looks like three different people, and that’s probably what hurts the book the most.

Fialkov’s story maintains the pace of the first book, but to the detriment of the story, the cliches continue again. Cyblade meets up with her old trainer, who she learns killed her parents, and after they fight, she asks Cyblade to then go after the man who tried to free her from Cyberdata. The ending loses a bit of its luster thanks to being fairly predictable, and the only question I had was whether or not I was going to pick up the next issue. It’s a shame the memory-starved hero is such a favorite, because if they had taken Cyblade in any other direction, it would automatically be more interesting. I’m not giving up on this book just yet, though. It’s got at least one more issue to prove to me it deserved to win Pilot Season 2007.