Writer: Ed Brisson
Art: Kev Walker
Colors: Frank D’Armata
Letters: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover: Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho
Variant Covers: Natacha Bustos & Matthew Wilson; Salvador & Guru eFX
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: 3.99
Release Date: September 14th, 2022
Theta has crashed on a barren and frozen world, and her quest for revenge–not to mention her life–is in peril unless she can repair her ship and escape. But is she about to become someone else’s prey?
If you’re interested in this comic, series, related trades, or any of the others mentioned, then simply click on the title/link to snag a copy through Amazon as you read the Predator #2 Review.
The Dispatch
PREDATOR #1 began by setting Theta up as a monster hunter, turning the Predator’s conceit on its head by making the alien the prey. But that display of strength fell away quickly when Theta’s ship crashed on a frozen wasteland of a planet, and in PREDATOR #2 it’s not strength that takes center stage so much as desperation.
Unlike the first issue, PREDATOR #2’s story remains in the present. We already know Theta’s hunt for Predators–for one Predator in particular–is motivated by revenge for the murder of her parents. So Theta’s sole companion here is Sandy–her shipboard AI that was introduced in PREDATOR #1. This near-isolation leads to a compelling moment in PREDATOR #2’s opening pages where Theta faces the possibility that Sandy is gone–that she’s lost her last “human” connection. The sequence only lasts a page, but it infuses Theta with a more personal range of emotion and vulnerability than we saw in PREDATOR #1.
If Brisson’s PREDATOR story is going to work, scenes like this will be key. Predators aren’t exactly sympathetic characters, and we’re unlikely to ever get any kind of humanity from them. If Theta is nothing more than a one-note monster-hunting revenge machine the series could grow very tired very quickly. But if Brisson continues to drop in moments like this it will help us care about Theta in the long term.
The issue quickly tempers the brief emotional outburst, though, and sends Theta off in search of materials needed to fix her ship. This is where PREDATOR #2’s focus on desperation comes in. She has too far to go in a freezing cold environment and not enough rations to last her. But Theta is obviously not going to die in the second issue of her series, so she must encounter unexpected circumstances that can boost her chances. These two scenes are recognizable from just about every wilderness survival story there is. One sequence, though, does impart an additional piece of character growth as Brisson shows us what Theta is willing to do to accomplish her self-imposed mission. But mainly this sequence reinforces what we already saw in PREDATOR #1.
The Art
PREDATOR #2 doesn’t feature anything nearly as visceral as the opening Theta/Predator fight in PREDATOR #1. The issue’s few action sequences are actually restrained by comparison. While that might seem surprising given the impression PREDATOR #1 made, it actually makes a lot of sense. If Predators are the series’ apex adversary and Theta’s primary target, it makes sense for Walker’s art to be more restrained by comparison, reserving the most violent imagery for those instances where it will make the greatest impact.
It is in fact a violence-free moment on PREDATOR #2 that leaves the most lasting impression. The page that comes early in the issue that sees Theta worried about Sandy finishes with a panel showing Theta absolutely elated. Walker runs through a gamut of emotions on the page until that elation is realized. The art contributes significantly to building up the emotions that Brisson’s script conveys at that moment.
Final Thoughts
PREDATOR #2 does a good job building on the character development that filled the latter half of PREDATOR #1. So far the underlying premise of the series is a monster hunter-type adventure. But emotional moments like Theta’s concern for Sandy make her interesting in her own right.