REVIEW: 'Break Out' #2 by Zack Kaplan, Wilton Santos, and Jason Wordie

 

BREAK OUT #2 

Writer: Zack Kaplan

Artist: Wilton Santos, Jason Wordie 

Letters: Jim Campbell

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Release Date: May 18, 2022

Cover Price: $3.99

Teens are being routinely abducted by massive Cube spaceships and held in floating prisons, the adults have given up but Liam Watts and his friends won't sit by any longer. Now, they're planning a prison break to free his brother. But when a Cube abduction raid takes one of their own and threatens their mission, will Liam's crew be ready in time to pull off this hi-tech heist or will it all come crashing down?

Score:

★★★★1/2 (4.5/5)

Zack Kaplan's ambitious comic about teens infiltrating a heavily secured alien-made prison floating in the sky to break out one of their brothers goes in on the planning and what they're up against in issue two. It's a carefully plotted follow-up that's well-paced as many things happen that both advance the heist and set it back. It's as a tightly written issue as Kaplan has ever written making it dense but never boring. 

Liam is convinced he and his friends can get his brother out of the Cube but all the security measures he lists make it appear impossible. Yet, to these smart motivated teens, Liam has them convinced it's entirely doable with the right equipment, practice, and planning. Each with their own expertise that will help, in theory, to accomplish this 'Mission Impossible/Ocean's Eleven' -level of difficulty. Kaplan lays out one of the most complex and difficult security measures in a heist one could imagine. As a fan of the genre, I know it'll get worked out but man, I have to ask whether Kaplan has written himself into a corner. It's the same feeling watching 'Breaking Bad' when similar stories reached seemingly insurmountable odds for Walter White only to have strategy and luck play a part in overcoming certain defeats. It'll be fun to see what Kaplan has in store as the operation takes place. 

Wilton Santos' art is very comprehensible and precise offering plenty of detail and imagination. The designs of the inner workings of the Cube are intricate and spatially coherent. Santos is part-architect and part-illustrator. As technical and futuristic as that is, Santos is equally adept at storytelling with the proper pacing and characterization. The montage of the kids doing their individual part of the plan reminds me of the television series 'The A-Team' when they would build something together as the rousing theme song played. It has the same energy of collaboration and innovation. Jason Wordie's colors add the right tone and depth to the different locales. The Cube drenched in red on the inside gives a very serious and sober environment that marks the no-nonsense and almost clinical approach of whoever built them. Life on the ground is much different, sunny and rainy days swing the group's fortunes in surprising ways, and Wordie captures those extremes perfectly. 

'Break Out' continues to build one of the wildest and hardest heists in science fiction. Kaplan raises the bar with a near-impossible mission but keeps things moving with inner team hope and then crisis. Issue two is chockful of development and wastes no time getting to the task at hand. Precisely and thoughtfully illustrated by Santos and Wordie, 'Break Out' is the perfect sci-fi heist comic for discerning readers. I need to see how this ends.