Review: Farscape #16

“The War for the Uncharted Territories, Part 4: Crawling from the Wreckage”

Story: Rockne S. O’Bannon & Keith R.A. Decandido

Script: Keith R.A. Decandido

Artist: Will Sliney

Colorist: Zac Atkinson

Letterer: Johnny Lowe

Publisher: Boom! Studios

Release Date: February 9th, 2011

 

The Farscape on-going series has had its ups and downs but now, at the height of the Kkore’s invasion of the Uncharted Territories, the series has gotten very good. The current storyline is the culmination of nearly a year’s worth of development over the course of two different Farscape-related series and many of those plot points, and their associated loose ends, are coming together.

Last issue featured some spectacular space battles, as well as some close calls and nail biting, as Aeryn Sun attempted to escape the Kkore’s attack with as many of her forces intact as possible and at the start of this issue we join her and her senior officers planning their next move. They are outnumbered, outgunned and have no place to go. Just as they seem to have made a decision, one that will clearly not satisfy everyone, Crichton arrives with the first good news they’ve had in awhile. We also peek in on Chianna, whose subplot has been crawling along for a very long time and seemingly going nowhere. I’d very much like to know where this is headed as I like the character, but it seems she’s being used as padding.

The most interesting sequence of this issue, however, is Scorpius’s. After discussing strategy with his Kkore mistress, and the Kkore with the his captive Rygel (who has made few appearances in this series, but should be very well known to regular Farscape fans), Scorpius takes actions that seem both completely in character and at once, completely out of character for him. After all, he has a position of power as he’s only been able to dream of, and who would give that up? In his own words, though, reflected glory is no glory at all.

The writing and characterization in this issue are spot-on, as always, but the art felt a little off. Especially in the early pages of the book, characters are slightly off model from panel to panel, particularly faces, before getting back to more or less normal. I found it a bit distracting.

Overall, however, this was a very solid issue and I look forward to the next.