Blue-Shift: Frenemies - Shades Of Vengeance Comics

BLUE-SHIFT: FRENEMIES, March 2018

“Speeding onto your bookshelf” courtesy of a successful “Kickstarter” in March 2018, which saw seventy-five backers pledge an impressive $1,201 “to help bring this project to life”, Johnathan Lewis’ narrative for “Blue-Shift: Frenemies” must have delighted both the universe’s creator, Ed Jowett, and the publication’s wider audience with its combination of compelling characters and promptly-paced fist-fights. Indeed, having efficiently established early on that “the fastest person on the planet” is as unlucky in her personal life as she is ultra-quick, the “Director for Shades of Vengeance Comics” arguably then crams this twenty-two page periodical’s plot full with a plethora of interesting emotional dilemmas for its blue-costumed heroine, as well as a pulse-pounding battle against a formidably-sized dirt zombie and its skull-faced sorcerous master.

Admittedly, this book’s storyline does get a little disorientating when Beth Sander’s alter-ego first discovers a seemingly lone female felon stealing from the city’s National Bank and attempts to incapacitate the blonde-haired criminal by knocking the wind out of her. The lightning-fast speedster’s sudden relocation to the top of a tall building, haplessly dangling in the grasp of Danny, makes perfect sense once it’s revealed that anything Shira touches can be teleported to her twin brother’s close proximity. But such exposition doesn’t come until slightly later in the adventure, so this initial encounter with the hoodie-wearing heister momentarily suggests that the tale has potentially somewhat jarringly skipped a piece of explanatory text or some such..?

Fortunately, once the necessary clarifications have been made, or at least the passage re-read, Lewis and Jowett's collaborative penmanship swiftly bewitches the reader once again, and soon it becomes clear that Blue-Shift is going to need to rely upon the robber’s enigmatic super-power to transport her to the likeable rogue’s locale so as to thwart the “charismatic and enthusiastic” vigilante’s real antagonist, a nefarious-looking magic user who quite wonderfully bears more than a passing resemblance to a cross between Mattel’s “Overlord of Evil”, Skeletor and Marvel's Taskmaster.

In fact, this pulse-pounding conclusion, terrifically-drawn and coloured by Rahmat Wisnubroto, really is debatably worth the cost of this book alone, as Sander combines forces with the well-meaning "Teleport Twins" so as to tackle the wielder of the Staff of Grathnalix, and ends up risking Daniel's welfare in order to destroy the source of the "probable" God's gift to Earth's power; “You’re making jokes?! I sent you to help him” Just leave” Just run away. It’s all you ever do, run!”

First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

Written by: Johnathan Lewis & Ed Howett, and Artwork by: Rahmat Wisnubroto