5 out of 5

The cult of Arcudi.

After a long break, the first few pages of this Rumble sorta one-shot (the letters page states it stands on its own but will add up to more later) had me worried that we were in store for a recap issue, with our lead inadvertent hero Bobby telling us about the scarecrow and fire gods of the first five issues via a “I don’t know what to do” rant to his invalid, hospitalized mother.  But I should have more faith in Arcudi, co-architect of the huge BRPD world and thus master at handling sprawling storylines but keeping it moving without holding a reader’s hand, and indeed, these few pages of flashback end up informing a minor emotional evolution for Bobby, as well as giving his interaction with crush Timah some weight beyond a bumbling meet-cute.  Meanwhile, our scarecrow god and Bobby’s buddy watch over the scarecrow’s heartless body, triggering a tale from the god’s past – yup, good ol’ Arcudi narrational parallels – that gives James Harren and Dave Stewart plenty of room to be awesome while also imparting a lesson on the nature of violence and heroism, themes I’m sure we’ll continue to explore.

Rather than feel like the momentum-halter a lot of one-shots do, issue #6 is an effective contemplation on the wackiness of the first arc, more fully establishing our characters and building up the world.  The art and colors are simply phenomenal – Stewart is a proven king of juxtapositions when he’s paired with an artist who can take advantage of them, and Harren is that artist, an uncanny sense of when to fill up his panels with motion lines or detail or just to leave some empty space.  Where do we go from here, I wonder?