What Do You Mean We've Depleted Our Explosion Budget?
If anyone can make an info dump entertaining, it's the people who make up Insomniac Games. Wanna make History class entertaining or your work presentations exciting? Call these guys. I can think of few people who can make the action of ceaselessly pumping out information to a viewer/reader as fun to see as these guys can. If you've played the games, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't played them (which you should), then this issue will give you a pretty good idea of what they're capable of.
The action heavy issue 2 gives way here to the story and background information heavy issue 3. We get to see the origin of Artemis's rage and what motivated him to start building his own galaxy through a series of flashbacks interwoven into the "present day" story. Normally, I'm not a big fan of this technique, but this series has made a habit of taking storytelling mechanics I don't particularly like and showing me how those techniques can be done well. I look forward to seeing how they make me enjoy plot holes and fridge logic in the next issue.
We get a good mixture of moods in this issue. We're not relentlessly exposed to solely sadness, fear, intimidation, or humor for the entire book. The moods are all expertly balanced and dispersed throughout and it keeps the reader from becoming bored by switching between the different moods at just the right time. It's that whole "variety is the spice of life" thing in action. While I have no doubt that T.J. Fixman could handle a monotonic issue and make it look easy (they came close in issue two), it's nice to see that they're mixing things up. This issue had the potential to be a major downer, but we're treated to Ratchet & Clank's subtle (and not so subtle) humor, including a hilarious segment between Qwark and a Hollywood agent type.
This is quickly turning into one of the most consistently great series I've read in a long time. Can't wait to read the next.