A review by crookedtreehouse
Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, Volume 2: Labyrinth by Robert Venditti
2.0
I appear to be in the minority of people who've been reading The Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior. I loved the premise of the previous volume, and was very intrigued to see where "Labyrinth" would take the story.
Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the balance of serene family moments and escaping a torturous hellscape in "Risen", I didn't at all care for the melodramatic family tension or the escaping a torturous labyrinth in this volume.
It's tough to write a cool, calculating villain in comics. Their plots need to be incredibly complex, and their intelligence needs to either be absolute genius, if you're going to play the story straight, or incompetent buffon, if you're going for either humor or a Silver Age feel. I found the villain in this book boring. I didn't care about their motivation. I didn't think the labyrinth that they set was at all interesting. And I thought the family aspect fell completely flat.
The art in the fifth issue was such a departure from Valiant's usual style. It had the urgent violence of [b:Crossed, Vol. 1|7720278|Crossed, Vol. 1|Garth Ennis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1268653282l/7720278._SY75_.jpg|10467414], and the wild movement of [a:James Stokoe|452015|James Stokoe|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. I like it, but I don't think it really fits with the other parts of the series. I also thought this entire issue could have been better served by being just three pages long.
The rest of the Labyrinth story either needed to be longer and show us a more complicated, intriguing labyrinth, or compacted into a single issue. It was precisely the wrong length for the story.
I don't know who to recommend it too, though, again, it seemed to be a big hit with other people reading the story.
Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the balance of serene family moments and escaping a torturous hellscape in "Risen", I didn't at all care for the melodramatic family tension or the escaping a torturous labyrinth in this volume.
It's tough to write a cool, calculating villain in comics. Their plots need to be incredibly complex, and their intelligence needs to either be absolute genius, if you're going to play the story straight, or incompetent buffon, if you're going for either humor or a Silver Age feel. I found the villain in this book boring. I didn't care about their motivation. I didn't think the labyrinth that they set was at all interesting. And I thought the family aspect fell completely flat.
The art in the fifth issue was such a departure from Valiant's usual style. It had the urgent violence of [b:Crossed, Vol. 1|7720278|Crossed, Vol. 1|Garth Ennis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1268653282l/7720278._SY75_.jpg|10467414], and the wild movement of [a:James Stokoe|452015|James Stokoe|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. I like it, but I don't think it really fits with the other parts of the series. I also thought this entire issue could have been better served by being just three pages long.
The rest of the Labyrinth story either needed to be longer and show us a more complicated, intriguing labyrinth, or compacted into a single issue. It was precisely the wrong length for the story.
I don't know who to recommend it too, though, again, it seemed to be a big hit with other people reading the story.