Harada. The world’s most powerful psiot, but a peace-loving one. Up till #15, he has been trying to defend his Foundation Zone, after his protégé Livewire disbanded and formed her own union of rebels, only to expose his secret Harbinger Foundation. After many tactics to try and distract Livewire, Harada has finally come up with a plan.
Holograms deceive the enemy, dragging Harada’s Team Apex to a Foundation Zone supply ship, and there the action begins.
Set to be released on April 27, Imperium #15 is complete with yet another action packed tale of Harada taking down Livewire’s forces of Team Apex. Starting from the beginning, I was slightly confused. Why shouldn’t I be? It was my first time to read a comic book, and before I wasn’t at all familiar with Valiant or the Imperium series. But as I kept reading it made more sense, and I then realized it certainly is possible to plop in the middle of a comic book series and read whichever you want; you don’t have to start from book #1; they give you the whole backstory before you start reading the panels. Awesome! Sorry, while I get excited at my first comic book read.
There was something genius I noticed first-off. The reader is immediately faced with two opposing sides. From my point of view, I had no idea who was the protagonist or antagonist, as the story focused on the slightly slinky female lead, the rebel captain of the H. A. R. D. Corps. I kept waiting for the epic psiot Harada to come in, and he did, in the end. But we’ll get to the end in a sec.
As for content, there was some gore, but as I have not read a lot of comics, I don’t know how to compare. Let’s just say it was a good amount for an action movie with a lot of fighting. There was some language, mostly towards the end, and I was surprised to see that one of the words was actually scribbled out (who did that!), but overall it wasn’t too terrible.
One of the things I loved was the psiot superpowers. For instance, Livewire can hack into computers with her own mind … if she gets past the psiot dampener shield. This is what happens when she is trapped in the grasp of the mighty Mech Major, Harada’s compassionate robot. Compassionate? He’s the first ever conscious creation of artificial intelligence, and Livewire discovers this as the psiot dampener sheild is lifted and she is able to hack into Mech’s computer, which is his mind. But what happens once she’s in the robot’s mind?
That’s half the fun, and it makes for a very nice twist at the very end, when we get to see Harada joins the fun as Major Palmer is returned to his Team Apex after a bloody skirmish with Lord Vine-99, an alien assassin clone sprout, and Gravedog, another trusted servant of Harada’s.
That was the other thing I enjoyed at this comic. Though the action was persistent and ended in quite a bit of blood and gore (there is a nice little illustration of brain, for example, for you squeamish readers), there was something to like about it: The snapping dialogue. Here we see the relationship between Palmer and Gravedog (who may be my favorite character thus far), no doubt their conversation referring back to earlier Imperium comics.
So, there is my review. I hope I have not given out any spoilers, as it was my first time reading an Imperium comic, but I intentionally left the ending blank for those of you who are looking forward to the read. What do you think? Don’t forget to leave a comment below and share on social media.
This copy was supplied by Valiant Comics. All thoughts are my own.
