FICTIONAUTS #3, from Red 5 Comics on April 13th, 2022, ends the psychedelic trip into alternate realities where Fiction is real, and a mysterious threat tries to destroy it all.
The Details
- Written By: Mauro Mantella
- Art By: Leandro Rizzo
- Colors By: Marcelo Blanco
- Letters By: Altercomics Studio
- Cover Art By: Alvaro Papagiani
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: April 13th, 2022
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Was It Good?
Well, it’s fair to say you can understand what’s happening in FICTIONAUTS #3 better than issue #2. The existential adventures of a task force assigned to protect the fiction from deviations certainly turned out to be a head-scratcher in the last issue. Here, we get clarity about the main villain’s plan, his motivations, and how it all relates to the “real” world.
Is this a great issue? It’s tough to say for sure. It’s a weird issue with plenty of cool ideas. That said, the overwhelming amount of avant-garde ideas and meta concepts tend to overwhelm the coherence of the story. It’s as if Mantella said, “How many different ideas that have nothing to do with each other, save that they’re all recognized as fiction, can we cram into a single comic and then wrap a mind-bending story around it.” The main point of interest in this comic is also its biggest flaw. “What if all fiction coexisted in a universe?” sounds good on paper (no pun intended) but rather than focusing on a few fictional points of interest, Mantella went after everything all at once, making for a very convoluted setting.
However, this is better than the previous one because we learn the origin of the main villain, we learn that our world exists and that it has a fundamental connection to the fictional world, and the villain’s motivations make a lot of sense… from a certain point of view. If you weed through all the noise, the idea is pretty clever and possibly worth exploring more in the future.
Despite the occasionally chaotic story, the art by Rizzo and Blanco is fascinating. The pencils/inks can be too thick at times, creating a smudged look on the characters and the cool Easter Eggs in the hidden corners of each panel, but the overall design captures the spirit of multiple periods and types of fiction all integrated into each panel. Much like the writing, the structure and the ideas are there, and they sometimes come into an interesting focus, but sometimes the surrounding noise gets in the way with the blotchy inkwork.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
If you’re feeling a little lost, read our FICTIONAUTS #2 review to get caught up. Every little bit helps.
We begin with Poisson and his mysterious ally luring in heroes from across the realms and using tech to disable their fictional abilities. It’s finally revealed that Agent Ten is an explorer from our world… the “real” world… and that the fictional world is creating a type of psychic cancer affecting the human population. The Fictional world has grown too powerful to control or shut down from the outside, so Agent Ten was sent in to find a way to disintegrate it from within.
Once Poisson and the Fictionauts learn the truth, they reluctantly join forces to stop Agent Ten before he eradicates their existence.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.
Final Thoughts
FICTIONAUTS #3 ends as an interesting thought experiment with plenty of cool concepts and ideas. However, the creators overstuff each issue with so many pieces of fiction and disconnected ideas that the main throughline of the story tends to get lost in the noise. Regardless, the arc ends with a decent explanation of what’s going on and leaves room for (hopefully, cleaner) exploration in the future.
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