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Lady Mechanika #3
Publisher: Aspen
Writer: Joe Benitez
Artists: Joe Benitez & Peter Steigerwald
Cover: Joe Benitez & Peter Steigerwald

Still searching for the origins of the other mechanical girl, Lady M has found herself at odds with a deadly group of circus performers. After a very tense exchange, she is introduced to Madame Divinite who runs the circus, and is given the answers to some of her questions. Her investigation then leads her to attend the most anticipated event in Mechanika City, which is Mechanicon. It is there where Lord Blackpool will be unveiling his newest invention, and Lady Mechanika feels that he knows the whereabouts of the missing girl.

The pace is picked up in this issue, as along with the large amount of dialog, Benitez provides us with plenty of action and even some humor. The reveal at the circus opened up the issue quite well, and the characters had a lot more depth than anticipated; it looks like we’ll be returning to them at a later point in the story. Benitez delivers a very tense moment between Lady Katherine and Blackpool that was one of the best sequences in the story. It establishes both characters a little better, but she comes off as one cold and calculating woman and looks to make for a great adversary of Lady M. Blackpool is also coming together as an interesting villain, though Benitez isn’t giving us too much too soon. This slow reveal of both his look and character have worked well and just reinforces that you don’t need to know everything up front to enjoy a story.

If you were figuring that the art of the title would suffer because Benitez was also writing the story, then you will be happy to know that you are wrong. There’s plenty of attention paid to the artwork, and he along with Peter Steigerwald deliver some great looking pages. From the action to the drama there’s a consistent energy that helps this issue flow a bit better than the previous one. The meeting with Lady Katherine and Blackpool is simplistic and just a collection of cool scenes. When we finally get a really good look at Blackpool, Benitez makes sure that we also get a hint of the man’s character from the reveal shot. Then there is the double page spread of the Helio Arx ,which made for quite impressive eye candy.

Three issues in (technically four if you count the zero issue) and Benitez has a really cool story beginning here. There’s a good mystery taking place while we’re also getting some pretty interesting characters to get to know, as well. If you’re going to complain about the frequency the issues come out, then that’s your right. However, when you get a copy in your hands there’s the satisfaction that you’re getting a pretty cool creator owned series.

Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.net