WRITER: FED VAN LENTE
ART: CLAYTON HENRY
I am a major Valiant fan from the old days, those old days being their first existence, even back to the WWF (not E) Battlemania books they produced before becoming the Valiant Universe people know. Ivar is the last of the original characters I have been waiting to make the jump to series.
For those who don’t know, in this universe as in the original, Ivar Anni-Padda is the eldest of the Anni-Padda brothers, the Eternal Warrior and Armstrong being the other two, and he has the ability to time travel, hence the name TimeWalker.
In this first issue of his new series we join the story as Ivar Anni-Padda shows up at the lab door of Dr. Neela Sethi, he claims he is there to save her, and prevent her from accidently inventing Time Travel, for the moment at least. However, who is he really looking to save? Is he trying to prevent her from creating something, or BECOMING something?
Fred Van Lente’s writing is good as usual, and Clayton Henry’s art hits the mark.
However, I have some mixed feeling about this issue. The story is solid, the pacing is near perfect and the characterization of Ivar and Neela is really good. Van Lente’s dialog is snappy as well. He does a good job of keeping the reader as confused as Neela is, leaving even a smart person wondering What The . . .
The reasons I have mixed feeling is some of it feels a little too standard and been there done that. For some reason Stan Lee’s The Traveler, from Boom! A few years ago, came to mind. Also, for some odd reason, this first issue and Ivar’s character reminded me a lot of Doctor Who. Especially the ‘running’ part. At times I felt like I was watching an episode of the good Doctor.
Another small issue I had was with Ivar’s personality. He does have one, and he seems well rounded. The problem is he comes off as the stereotypical ‘eccentric’ time traveler, another Doctor Who type feature. As it seems this is the goal, well done. It just seems like that makes Ivar ‘part of the crowd.’
The best thing about issue one is how we jumped right into the story and got going. No time is wasted on backstory, origins or explaining who Ivar is. Yes, as Ivar and Neela are escaping the pending threat, Ivar explains how he travels through time, but that is about it. Since Ivar is already an established character there is no need to waste time with what many readers will already know.
FINAL THOUGHTS: A good enough first issue that left me wanting it to be a little more. A ‘familiar’ feel holds back what promises to be a good first story arc.
RATING: 6
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