Harbinger #6 Review

Over the weekend we got our hands on a few previews, courtesy of Valiant Entertainment. One of them was Harbinger #6. This is my first time with the series so I made sure I read the briefs on the inside cover and on Valiant's site. But basically the main character, Peter Stanchek, has high level psionic powers and was recruited to join the Harbinger organization by the antagonist of the story, Toyo Harada. When it turns out Harada's plans aren't in line with Peter's the two bump heads and Peter deserts the organization.

Issue six picks up after that debacle with Kris, a love interest of Peter's  (whom he brainwashed into loving him in an earlier issue). Kris narrates the entire issue, which was interesting seeing as though she wasn't the protagonist I was prepared to read about. She was interesting and her narration on its own did a good job of filling in the blanks of the previous 5 issues and some of the back story. She's the sort of female lead that takes care of her own business and doesn't necessarily need the hero to save/make decisions for her. She proved that aptly in issue six, as it was Kris who ultimately stepped into a leadership/commander role. She assumed responsibility of the problem and thought of a way to solve it, which was a pretty clever and simple way to set up a 'build a team' storyline. The pacing was smooth and kinda drifted through one of Kris' thoughts to the next... but not in a bad way. In a logical 'I'm thinking about all this crazy $#!+ that's going on around me' way. I would buy issue seven just to see what she has in store.

Kris and Faith

The other characters didn't impress me as much, especially Peter. He didn't do much in the issue to be 'the hero'. But he was recuperating, presumably from his epic battle with Harada in one of the earlier issues. Faith aka Zephyr was interesting, but it wasn't character driven. She's a 'glass half full' kind of girl; bubblegum, optimism and probably Twilight. Her obesity was the most memorable thing about her as the character archetype has been done over and over. I will say this though, I did like her. It was hard not to. It would be similar to disliking someone cause they're happy its a sunny day. She has room for growth though, as she seems to have some loyalty to Peter; a loyalty that will probably be put to the test one day.

Yeah. I'd like to see where this story goes.