- Writer: David A. Goodman
- Artist: David Cabeza
- Colorist: Michael Atiyeh
- Letterer: Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
- Designer: Brennan Thome
- Digital Art Technician: Ann Gray
- Editor: Dave Marshall
- Assistant Editor: Konner Knudsen
Thanks to Dark Horse for the review copy!
The third issue of Dark Horse’s THE ORVILLE comic adaptation starts a new arc, making it a decent place to jump on board. Fans of the show will continue to find the comic faithfully captures the tone of the series, while the art team does an admirable job rendering the characters into two dimensions.
This issue is perhaps the most meta comic I have read in a while – with Talla reading what is essentially an alien comic book during a flashback mission. More so than the first arc, the present day plot is directly tied to that flashback. It’s interesting to see an episode focus on Talla, who never really grabbed the spotlight on the show, having been relatively new to the series.
While The Orville is an homage to Star Trek, we once again get the kind of boneheaded decisions that would make the Federation face-palm. The Prime Directive, while kind of used in The Orville, is pretty much always disregarded. In it’s place, we do get some interesting moral questions about when it is right to intervene in another culture’s problems. In my opinion, this is when The Orville is at its best.
While the art faithfully depicts the show’s characters, this issue introduces a new alien species (the Nazh) who would be hard to depict in real life (though Orville does boast some nifty special effects). While they are baddies, they seem kind of cute, in a pug ugly kind of way. I don’t know if that was intentional on the artist’s part, but it is hard to get a real sense of menace from them so far.
While I enjoyed the prior two issue arc, I prefer this one so far. You don’t have to have read the first two issues to read this one, though some knowledge of the characters will help you appreciate how well this comic fits with the show.
THE ORVILLE #3: HEROES (PART 1 OF 2) is now available
Check back in a few weeks for my review of the 4th issue in the series.
Are you going to pick up the issue? Feel free to chat with me on Twitter or leave a comment below!
