Prometheus: Fire and Stone #3

Prometheus: Fire and Stone #3

Writer: Paul Tobin
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Assistant Colorist: Eduardo Ferreyra
Letterer: Nate Piekos
Cover Artist: David Palumbo

Prometheus: Fire and Stone #3 kicks up the story a couple notches as the drama takes some twists and turns. Captain Angela Foster struggles to hold it together, keeping morale up and maintaining a clear, obtainable goal. But Francis’ tinkering with Elden, the unexpected numbers of xenomorphs, and a couple wildcards all stand in her way. Can Angela save her people?

Through all the various arcs, we’ve seen three central figures, three key survivors struggling the mayhem. There’s Galgo the cocky mercenary, Francis the foolish scientist, and Elden the warped construct. This issue really brings their three stories into play and shows the twisting points for all three. Elden has been transformed by the black ooze and is now seeking revenge against Francis who did this to him. It’s a pretty simply storyline, but this issue helps add some depth to it. We get to see Elden working through the thought process of what Francis did to him, why he did it to him, and what this might mean about all humans and their thoughts about constructs.

On the flip side, Francis really does reveal his true colors. He sees Elden as nothing more than a tool. He saw a chance to cure himself and he ignore the risks and consequences. He foolishly gave in to his own selfish desires and self-destructive impatience. As Angela calls him out on it, he broke company policy and experimented on a member of the crew. It’s a clear cut revelation that Francis is not an empathetic or sympathetic character. To further heighten things, his mistakes are now putting everyone at risk. Paul Tobin did a very nice set up with trapping part of the crew on the ship, making them feel safe, giving the readers a false hope that they would be rescued, then crashing everything down. It was brilliantly played.

Then there’s Galgo. He’s the smart mouth storyteller. The gunslinger. He’s the one you want with you in a firefight. But to Angela’s detriment, she finds out he’s not the one you want in charge of second team. Galgo has a mind of his own, and he’s not overly concerned about risking his life to save others. His choice puts everyone else in even more jeopardy. Yet his choice is easier to reconcile with than Francis. In the other arcs, we’ve seen Galgo stoop to even lower treachery, so he’s definitely no better than Francis, but I still kind of like him more. He may be a bastard, but of the survivors, he’s the lesser of evils.

The other wildcard in this story is a roving engineer. His appearance is a complete surprise and also a complete mystery. What is he doing? We see him walking around the jungles, gathering up dead xenomorphs, and piling them up. There’s no explanation. It’s an intriguing story point and definitely worth some more exploration. I hope it’s not something that gets left by the wayside.

The artwork stands out with it’s unique style and brings to life some vivid imagery. While some of the establishing panels can be a bit murky in color and detail, there are some truly wonderful close-up shots that are the complete opposite. The first one is a close up of Elden with his skin peeling off and mutating. It’s done in vivid detail with wonderful colors, straddling the line between realism and artwork. There’s the gory shot of him pulling his face off, a bloody shot of Galgo after being attacked by one of those little monkey creatures, Chris staring up in concern about her wife, all of them great shots showing a lot of detail and splendid imagery. Overall, the artwork works really well and stands out.

I loved the twists and turns of the story in Prometheus: Fire and Stone #3 and, with the great artwork, this issue doesn’t miss a beat. If you’ve been following along with all the arcs so far, the payoffs are rolling in. I give this one a five out of five metal bikinis. It’s a great example of what can be done with the series.

Reviewed By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.