Looking for that perfect book to kick off your new year? Needing a punch of adrenaline with a dash of drama and TON of action? Vault Comics has it here for you right now!
By writer Tres Dean, artist Sebastian Piriz, colorist Def Cunniffe, and letterer Jim Campbell, We Ride Titans #1 is a perfect first issue. I don’t know how anything else this year is going to beat it!
First grabbing the book, the covers are all PHENOMENAL. You know how comic covers can be notoriously misleading? These aren’t that at ALL! They perfectly display the action you’re about to see upon immediate opening. I mean, even the credits page looks like the opening credits for a film!
From the start, Tres Dean had me hooked with the narration. If anyone follows my reviews, they know I am a huge fan of writers that pen narration well, where it seems to come naturally to them. Dean’s narration feels real, it reads much like my own thoughts sound in my own head. This is the focal point of any story for me- the empathy one can have with characters, even with characters they are nothing like.
I’m certainly not like the guy at the beginning of this story, Dej, drinking and barely being able to stay on his feet as he fights a Kaiju in a giant robotic suit.
Sebastian Pitz and Def Cunniffe maintained my attention with all the action within the next few pages! Piriz draws the movements of the Kaiju wonderfully, making each transition panel look badass! Cunniffe’s colors help make it easier to follow each movement. The earthy palette of oranges, greys, and yellows really fits the tone of the story beautifully as well.
So is We Ride Titans just punchy-punch Kaiju action?
We Ride Titans is Pacific Rim meets Succession. It’s a balance of all the Kaiju-fighting action a fanboy could want and all the drama none of us want in our own lives, but love to read about or watch.
As the action cools and the plot kicks in, Dean does a great job setting up who we think is going to be the main protagonist and then surprising us with the actual protagonist.
Mild spoiler alert! If you don’t wanna hear it, skip to where it says “end spoiler alert”:
The main protagonist is not Dej, it’s his sister Kit. It’s refreshing to read an often hypermasculinized kind of story about fighting giant monsters, like Kaiju, where a woman is the main protagonist, not the man. Furthermore, it’s so nice to see an LGBTQ+ main protagonist naturally embedded into the story from the start. And for those of you worried: no, this story is not any less badass because of this. It’s even MORE badass!
End spoiler alert!
The balance between action and plot was perfect in this issue. There was no moment where I felt like I was bored with learning about the family and the politics behind using robots to fight Kaiju. Additionally, I never felt like the action was too over the top. The pacing felt true to the story all these fantastic creators are setting out to tell.
The most compelling part of this issue is one of its overarching themes: What does it mean to be the wall? Is fighting Kaiju just for sport? Does riding these giant bots mean more than just destroying Kaiju? What wall do we all have to be in our own lives?
I can’t wait to find out the answers to all these questions and so much more! Dean, Piriz, Cunniffe, and Campbell have given Vault Comics and us the perfect issue to start our New Year off with! Pacific Rim Fans, Transformers fans, Drama fans, anyone and every one with great taste- add this to your pull list STAT, because you’ll need more than 1 issue of this series to feed your appetite!
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