4 out of 5

Salvador Sanz reached into my brain, twiddled with some connections to get the answer to the question: if you could see some changes or additions to my sequel to Mega, my modern day, lore-tastic kaiju book, what would they be? and then studiously applied my replies to Rise of the Black Swan, the two-part prestige followup series. 

Or: this is damn near exactly what I wanted. 

Following in the already impressive footsteps of the first issues, Black Swan is a direct continuation: adding more awakening kaiju, good kaiju Mega again summoned to fight them, and deepening the fascinating mythology and character work for Tina – the child with the connection to Mega – Edgar, her dad, and Felipe, the goth kid with the connection to the bad kaijus.  

This is kind of flippant in my phrasing, but Sanz delivers it with all due awe, again perfect at downbeats between exposition, and doling out bits and pieces of what these giant creatures are and are up to in well-paced bites. Where it improves even on what came before is by giving these beings more personality and recognizable landmarks on their figures, and going rather all out with their battles and actions. Yeah, when they fight it’s rah rah, but there’s a cryptic nature to things that lends moments both majesty and terror. 

Where we’re still shy of perfect: perhaps it’s in the translation somehow, but some of the lettering sequencing – in what order dialogue is said / read – seems very off, definitely upsetting the pacing, and, in general, the passage of time is hard to discern. 

But it’s absolutely still a fantastic story, with great characters, and insane visuals.