Spirit's Destiny #1 - Short Fuse Media Group

SPIRIT'S DESTINY No. 1, March 2019

Featuring a genuinely enthralling opening, which provides both plenty of heart-racing tension as a masked burglar seemingly attempts to steal away a sleeping baby, and a pulse-pounding punch-up between the titular character’s seriously super-kick ass parents, it’s abundantly clear that “writer/creator Dorphise Jean has been developing the story of Spirit's Destiny for multiple years.” Indeed, this marvellous introduction to “an ongoing comic series featuring a Haitian girl with extraordinary abilities” arguably couldn’t grab its readers’ attention any better, especially after it’s revealed that the sinisterly-clad intruder is actually the infant’s father Brian and rather than trying to steal his beloved daughter away from her mother, the overly-confident criminal is apparently disconcertingly injecting his child with a solution which he hopes “is best for you.”

Of course, after such a sense-shattering start, any subsequent depiction of Destiny simply going through the daily ‘hum drum’ routine of getting ready for school is going to significantly slow the twenty-eight page periodical’s pace down. However, despite the sedentary nature of this comic’s subsequent sequences, this publication’s creative team still manage to imbue its proceedings with plenty of intrigue due to the implication that some disconcerting family tension potentially exists involving the teenager’s French-based creole-speaking grandma; “I swear between the two of you, I’m gonna meet an early fate.”

Similarly as successful at injecting everyday events with plenty of ‘pow’ is Jean’s portrayal of the “poor, naïve, innocent soul” half-heartedly selecting the best food her cafeteria has to offer and suddenly encountering Noel’s unjustifiably enraged girlfriend. This book’s audience literally just have enough time to register the jealous Lisa’s presence in the panel before the irate long-haired blonde has been sketched momentarily grabbing hold of Destiny’s uniform-grey blouse and then getting savagely smacked straight in the face by her formidably fierce foe for her unfounded aggressive act.

Perhaps the only hindrance to Issue One of "Spirit's Destiny" is therefore that is has been pencilled by a plethora of artists, who despite all prodigiously doing their best to make this comic a visually engaging experience, debatably still can’t help but repeatedly remind its reader that someone else has intermittently taken over the artistic duties. In fact, by the time this plot’s troublesome trio have unwisely broken into the Lucid Mechanical and Chemical Engineering Corp, and played out a scene somewhat reminiscent of Flynn’s early fate in the 1982 American science fiction action-adventure film “Tron”, the amount of changes throughout this comic’s interior are arguably a palpable distraction.

Writer: Dorphoise Jean, and Pencilers: Edwin Galmon, Richard Perotta & Stan Yak