3 out of 5

Peter Panzerfaust has, to me, had something of a dreamlike flow to it from the start, which has helped to sell Wiebe’s fun idea to couch a tale rooted in fantasy – Peter Pan – within the war-torn setting of WWII.  I haven’t felt like the book has lent itself to traditional arcs, but things are grouped nonetheless and its worked.  It’s not that ‘The Hunt’ doesn’t work, but the opening issue for the arc seems so bent on setting up a structure that the remaining four issues feel hampered when they return to the more wandering flow.  Overall, this is the story of Lily tracking down Hook’s men who were responsible for the death of her father.  In doing so, it ‘resolves’ her part in our story (seemingly) and give Julien a graceful exit, as the pair have had enough of war after the revenge killings.  Through flashbacks and asides, Wiebe blends the hunting vignettes with those wonderfully naturalistic character-building-through-conversations moments that he writes so well.  Still, something about having to set the stage for Lilly (and to, perhaps, justify her killings) causes the narrative unevenness that lowers the rating of the arc: we start from the reporter’s point of view and then essentially don’t return to it; mostly Lilly’s flashbacks of her father are from before the war, but there’s one that shifts the timeline closer to current events and that felt unnecessary.  Lastly, and this is tough: there’s too much Peter.  Obviously Peter’s the hero, and everything is moving toward establishing his status as an icon, but again, the promise is that this will be Lilly’s tale, and then there are moments like the entire first two thirds of issue #18 that are Lilly-less and completely Peter-centric.  Telling the events around ‘the hunt’ linearly, I get why the scene is there, but simply interspersing some Lilly / Julien into the mix and maybe, somehow, paralleling Peter’s story to theirs could’ve made this smoother.

Meanwhile, Tyler Jenkins art gets more amazing.  Jenkins’ success from the start was in creating a wonderful sense of motion on the page; as things have progressed, his gotten more and more competent at handling more elements on the page, and we’re to a point now where it doesn’t matter if its a splash, or a 2×2 or 3×3 grid – the pages just don’t miss a beat.  Kelly Fitzpatrick’s colors get a good workout in this run, as we change settings frequently and get different moods for each location.

‘The Hunt’ maintains ‘Fausts unique Wiebe flavor, but in an attempt to tell a more formal 5-part arc, Kurtis stumbles, diminishing the effect a bit.  However, still plenty of plot and character development.