Pencils by: Greg Capullo
Colors: Fco Plascencia
Published by: Image Comics
Reborn kicks off in a disorientating fashion, with Mark Millar’s latest offering lurching through three quick, related, scenes that take the reader from a contemporary urban scene, to a fantastical other world, back to a very human nursing home. The opening leaves you with a jolt. To counter this frenetic opening, Millar switches tack and drops the pace to a crawl while he lays the foundation for the story. This section tends towards the maudlin, and suffers from a little too much saccharine.
While this opening section is playing out, Millar starts building his character Mrs. Black. She is the link between the various sections that have been laid out.
Mrs Black is a widower, an elderly lady in her final days. She is fearful of the inevitable end. As the title suggests, Reborn isn’t just about ending…
When the book picks up the pace again, it does so in typically explosive fashion. Since the work in development of the story was done early, the faster paced elements don’t need to hang around to expound plot points or characterization. The flow of the book is skewed in this manner, a heavier opening followed by a brief, clipped second phase. It may have worked better to lessen the opening section and show more in the second half.
The art for the book is flawless – which is as you’d expect from Greg Capullo. The fantastical elements of the other world setting are pleasing on the eye, while the grim realities of Mrs Black’s end days carry the requisite emotional depth. Greg successfully imbues the characters with life, and marries up the real with the extraordinary with aplomb. The art team are pitch perfect in all three aspects of pencils, inks and colors. The final section of the book has some delicious art, very atmospheric and kinetic .
Despite being a somewhat choppy book in terms of the flow, the better elements of the book work well. The creative team involved are excellent, though on this offering the art team shine the brightest while there is more to come from Mark Millar on Reborn.
