Reviews
High Level (2019-) #1 by Guillaume Ospital, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Rob Sheridan, Barnaby Bagenda
adsowhitney's review
3.0
Its was a good start. A lot of unanswered questions, but I'm intrigued and if I can find the next issues I'll probably continue on.
quirkycatsfatstacks's review
4.0
This was an interesting start to a new series. It reminds me of something…but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Most likely it’s just the tone or a combination of different things. That’s not a bad thing by any mean, so it’s not putting me off from the series.
I like the tone and the setup so far, but I’ll have to see where things go in the long run before I can really say how I feel about this series. I do think that it has a lot of potential though. I could use another ‘epic quest’ sort of series to read.
I like the tone and the setup so far, but I’ll have to see where things go in the long run before I can really say how I feel about this series. I do think that it has a lot of potential though. I could use another ‘epic quest’ sort of series to read.
kadi_p's review
3.0
*Mild spoilers, read at your own discretion.*
*All pictures have been edited to suit the purposes of the review and to avoid spoilers.*
This issue was a mixture of “what is going on???” and “wow, great hair!”. So in other words: confusion and great art.
The Characters:
Only 4 characters really stood out:
1. Thirteen
She’s the beautiful and sassy protagonist. Just look at her sassiness:
Her beautifulness with blue hair:
Her beautifulness with purple hair:
I’m not really sure it was necessary to show her dying her hair or even to have her dye it at all (it looked great blue) but I’m glad they did because wow her HAIR.
2. Jasper
How relevant was this character to the whole story arc? I can’t say. Perhaps he will pop up later.
If not, then he was only significant in showing the reader how two different characters viewed High Level because he believed it was an awesome place and Em didn’t. It’s to create that intrigue and mystery.
3. Em
I couldn’t tell if she was in a relationship with Thirteen or they’re just super friendly friends. Either way this character was simply in the story to give Thirteen a reason to go to so she could eventually meet , as far as I could tell.
4. Akan
Aah, the ex-boyfriend. This was perhaps the most significant of the supporting characters. What he had to say to Thirteen was veeerry interesting. Also, his hair. Man, his HAIR!
The Plot:
A lot of the concepts weren’t properly explained so I was a bit confused but by the end I was able to figure out that 1. High Level was a place and 2. Black Helix were like the Army.
I actually spent so much time being confused by what High Level was that when I reached the end of the issue and saw this very helpful map that clearly explained what High Level was and the places in the North that characters kept mentioning, I was annoyed they hadn’t put it at the beginning of the issue:
The first page that showed seemed very random but I think the relevance of the scene might become clearer in a few issues time (hopefully).
There were several pages wasted with some monster/man/robot/thing with a rotor arm talking absolute nonsense and using way too many metaphors to make sense. Thirteen even voiced my own thoughts on this:
That scene seemed like such an escalation; I was so confused by it.
It’s relevance became clear with the entrance of, though. Even then it did seem like a waste of a few pages that could've been spent explaining High Level in a more effective way.
The ending was the only bit that really piqued my interest. This was the part that had me go: “Oooh ok, I get what is going to happen now”. Just look at the beautiful art, too:
All in all, this issue was just a precursor to what is to come. A haphazard attempt at world-building that becomes a head-dive into confusion, irrelevant characters thrown in with relevant ones, and only lovely art and a glimpse of the future can save this issue from being a waste of time.
See the next step in the journey... Check out my review for issue #2!!
*All pictures have been edited to suit the purposes of the review and to avoid spoilers.*
This issue was a mixture of “what is going on???” and “wow, great hair!”. So in other words: confusion and great art.
The Characters:
Only 4 characters really stood out:
1. Thirteen
She’s the beautiful and sassy protagonist. Just look at her sassiness:
Her beautifulness with blue hair:
Her beautifulness with purple hair:
I’m not really sure it was necessary to show her dying her hair or even to have her dye it at all (it looked great blue) but I’m glad they did because wow her HAIR.
2. Jasper
How relevant was this character to the whole story arc? I can’t say. Perhaps he will pop up later.
If not, then he was only significant in showing the reader how two different characters viewed High Level because he believed it was an awesome place and Em didn’t. It’s to create that intrigue and mystery.
3. Em
I couldn’t tell if she was in a relationship with Thirteen or they’re just super friendly friends. Either way this character was simply in the story to give Thirteen a reason to go to
Spoiler
the warehouse placeSpoiler
Akan4. Akan
Aah, the ex-boyfriend. This was perhaps the most significant of the supporting characters. What he had to say to Thirteen was veeerry interesting. Also, his hair. Man, his HAIR!
The Plot:
A lot of the concepts weren’t properly explained so I was a bit confused but by the end I was able to figure out that 1. High Level was a place and 2. Black Helix were like the Army.
I actually spent so much time being confused by what High Level was that when I reached the end of the issue and saw this very helpful map that clearly explained what High Level was and the places in the North that characters kept mentioning, I was annoyed they hadn’t put it at the beginning of the issue:
The first page that showed
Spoiler
a couple and a mysterious old (threatening?) manThere were several pages wasted with some monster/man/robot/thing with a rotor arm talking absolute nonsense and using way too many metaphors to make sense. Thirteen even voiced my own thoughts on this:
That scene seemed like such an escalation; I was so confused by it.
It’s relevance became clear with the entrance of
Spoiler
AkanThe ending was the only bit that really piqued my interest. This was the part that had me go: “Oooh ok, I get what is going to happen now”. Just look at the beautiful art, too:
All in all, this issue was just a precursor to what is to come. A haphazard attempt at world-building that becomes a head-dive into confusion, irrelevant characters thrown in with relevant ones, and only lovely art and a glimpse of the future can save this issue from being a waste of time.
See the next step in the journey... Check out my review for issue #2!!
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