Highlight #4 - G-Man Comics

HIGHLIGHT No. 4, November 2024

Considering just how many super-powered characters Gilbert Monsanto throws at his audience in Issue Four of “Highlight”, it’s rather impressive that the periodical’s thirteen-page plot still manages to make the titular character its focal point. Indeed, arguably many a writer may well have succumbed to all sorts of temptations with so large a cast, and relentlessly flung their readers all over the place with a plethora of head-swirling origin stories; “From across all realities, they come. They are their worlds’ most brilliant minds.”

Happily however, the former chief instructor for Whilce Portacio’s comic creation school in Manila controls just such an urge by largely concentrating upon some of the issues Highlight is currently struggling with as a visitor to both our dimension, and the human form. Furthermore, the opening sequence contains some ominous foreshadowing as to what the hero’s future might hold, and this mysterious potential attack upon his life rather intriguingly sits at the back of the bibliophile’s mind throughout the rest of the publication.

Of course, the best part of this comic is unequivocally Red Halo’s ability to surround her comrade-in-arms with a small army of “selected detectives from different corners of the created realities”. This so-called League of the Minds conjures up an almost insurmountable number of questions as to just who each colourfully-costumed protagonist is, and the promise that these queries will be answered in the forthcoming battle for the persistently tormented Multiversal-Man’s sanity should have onlookers hooked for a fair few more future instalments to come.

Rounding off this particular publication is Monsanto’s secondary yarn “Welcome To The Jungle Dark!”, which depicts the always foul-mouthed Sgt. Flag and Joe Dragon desperately attempting to rescue a congresswoman from a mythical land just outside Beringan city . Gilbert does a good job in penning some nice verbal interplay between this tale’s leads, and also manages to pencil some cracking splash pages to boot – most notably a pin-up just before the adventure starts which showcases the artist’s ability to imbue all his figures with resonating dynamic life, and an inventively angled illustration which shows the two G-Men tackling a forest full of wonderfully imaginative Mushroom Men.

Story & Art: Gilbert Monsanto, and Story Assist & Letters: Eric N. Bennett