3 out of 5

Well, as John pitched it, issues 6 and 7 were sort of part of this arc, but sort of stood on their own.  It’s true, but Rumble arc 2 ends up being a tenuous thing, almost feeling like its scrambling for direction post the big splash of its first arc.  Issue 6 gave us our scarecrow god’s recitation of a tale from his past which gets retold from a much different point of view in these three issues; the varying viewpoint is incredibly fascinating, but it’s almost so far out there different that I wasn’t sure I was reading the same thing.  And that this ends up only being sort of background for what the issues sort of focus on – which is a jailbreak for some half-Esu kids – makes it underwhelming: the discrepancy is worth focusing on, but that we have to dig through the stilted god-speech (props to Chris Eliopoulos’ many-styled letterings for this book, though) to understand what’s being said only to have it almost tossed aside as a story scrap makes the momentary focus on it weird.  I can only hope Arcudi comes back to this.

Issue 7’s tie-in is even more wayward, giving us a glimpse of one character who’s a big part of the second arc’s rumble, but moreso highlighting an Asura / Cogan interaction that escalates into something here.  Which is also worth focusing on.  As is the jailbreak.

There’s really just too much going on in Rumble, act 2, but it all gets downplayed so much that you have to dig to find those moments of interest, hidden as they are behind a big and bloody brawl that’s spread out across the three issues.

Harren’s art also seems oddly cartoonish in book 8; it’s almost as though he was briefly trying out a slight variation on his style before getting back to his controlled, awesome, angular anarchism.

So I dunno.  I like the concept of disparate storylines that come together, but I sort of wish John had gone one way or another for all five issues; the half-step 6 and 7 to the wishy-washy three part 8-10 – which again, is only really held together by a battle, but could otherwise have been split up if so desired – prevents any one piece from feeling too relevant.  But Arcudi is generally in this stuff for the long haul, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the world-building doubt and hang in there to see where this might all be leading to.