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OUT OF THE LONG BOX #035 – SOVEREIGN #4

By Chris Fenn

Sovereign #4 Survival
I wanted Sovereign to be the Game of Thrones of comics. I wanted to be able to get into an epic world of fantasy, swords and politics and be reading each page with bated breath. Sadly I am not reading with baited breath; I’m counting down the pages until the book has finished.

This book started off in a really unusual way because we were told about the basic forces of this universe and the previous eras of the world. It feels like this is how the first issue should have begun, but reading it in the fourth issue feels like Chris Roberson thought it was pretty cool and wanted to shove it in somewhere.

I feel this issue as a whole really missed an opportunity; last issue ended with a zombie king being killed by his sons, and the guys that deal with disposing of the dead warn everybody of worse things to come. This issue basically dissolves into everybody talking to each other.

Sovereign #4 Intro
Now I enjoy good bits of writing and dialogue, I find films like Clerks massively engaging because of the dialogue between characters, but in Sovereign it feels overly indulgent of itself. I understand that this is a fantasy world, and it will have more fantasy-sounding people and places, but I honestly feel completely lost reading this. I have no idea who or what places are called.

Perhaps this is a problem with me though, I did used to call Prince Oberyn in Game of Thrones ‘Yellow Man’ because he was a man who wore yellow, but I never felt lost with that; I knew who people were talking about even if I couldn’t remember the names myself, and I can’t say I have that same level of understanding with Sovereign.

I do kind of like what Roberson does at the end of each issue, having a piece of prose that helps explain things to the reader and fleshes out the world, but when I’ve not really been enjoying the plot I find it difficult to care what’s written there. Truth be told, I missed out reading this part for the last couple of issues because I didn’t get what the others were talking about.

I think Sovereign is a brilliant idea and it’s something I know I would love to watch, but the way it’s written doesn’t lend itself to monthly comic book reading. Perhaps this is something that would translate better to trades, and produce the small prose parts as a reader’s companion or something.

Sovereign #4 Daemons
I’ve given this book the first four issues, and I think it’s time for me to drop it. I got caught up with it during the closing pages of issue three, but it felt like issue four has taken a few steps in the wrong direction.

I’d be interested to see what anybody else thinks of Sovereign; is there a nuance I’ve missed and this is a gem? You tell me! Go check out the first couple of issues and let me know on twitter @fenneth1989

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Posted on June 26th, 2014
Category: OUT OF THE LONG BOX, REVIEWS
Tags: , , , , ,