Horizon #3 Review

Writer: Brandon Thomas / Artist: Juan Gedeon / Image Comics An invasion story; a survival story; a revenge story. In its early run, Horizon has been several types of stories so far as readers watch Zhia’s history unfold, and after issue #3 we can add “love story” to the list. And prison escape. And fuck it, at this point I’ll be disappointed if I don’t see a dinosaur at some point, and it’s managing to do them all remarkably well. In issue #3 we pick up where our previous cliffhanger left off, with Zhia’s comrade, Finn, being tortured in an Earth prison. We know it’ll eventually turn into a prison escape, only the question is how long it’ll take this series to build towards the inevitable – oh shit, there it goes.

This comic moves at a great pace that continues to balance plot exposition with world building. Issue #3 introduces intimate flashbacks for the first time, showing a different world – literally and figuratively – for Zhia that gives us an impression of what relative normalcy looks like before we found her crash-landed and disoriented, looking for other survivors. We also put a few faces and voices to Zhia’s nemeses, Finn’s captives, during our first gunfight that sets the baseline for future action scenes. Nothing overly spectacular or fantastical so far, just a typical Mission: Impossible-style breakout scene with guns blaring and a getaway van, and it serves its purpose.

The exposition lay mostly in the flashbacks in issue #3 as the present-day story is action h…