Low #4

By Rick Remender, Greg Tocchini

“I’m almost glad Johl didn’t live to see what it became.”

Keep your head up, don’t give up, and keep pushing forward. That’s one of the underlying themes of Rick Remender’s and Greg Tocchini’s Low series. And in Low #4 this idea pays off, but at what cost?

Writer Rick Remender has been taking us on a crazy ride since issue #1 of this series. Stel, the protagonist, continues on her mission alongside her son Marik – who doesn’t share her sense of hope and wonderment, but follows along anyway. This time around we see them discover a vastly different setting than they are used to, and Stel takes things to drastic measures – will Marik be able to stop her?

Artist Greg Tocchini has been doing excellent work on this series creating original style artwork taking on a whole new life with his distinctive colors. A great scene depicting their travels toward Third City shows an underwater two page spread soaked in a yellow-orange tint. A few strange looking red and yellow sea creatures inhabit the scene – the colors playing nicely off the background. This scene gives a good feel to the kind of areas the two have to traverse on their way to something they’re hoping will save them. In the pages that follow you see Stel and her son Marik escape the previous scene and begin their descent upward – while keeping the same color scheme – as they emerge into the city, which has changed quite a bit over the years compared to how it used to be – or at least how they say it used to be.

Each issue in this series brings a big story and outlandish characters (is that shark standing up?!). Hope is always on the horizon, but something always seems to get in the way. What happens when Stel can’t keep her cool? And since when is Marik the calm one?