Storming The Castle With War Of The Realms: Giant-Man #3
by Josh Davison
[*Mild Spoilers Ahead!]
Ant-Man, Goliath, Giant-Man, and Atlas scale the Frost Giant fortress to finally track down Ymir and stop the production of Primordial Frost Giants. Once inside, they find that all the women have been brought to the fortress to serve in its innermost chamber. There, they discover what has really been going on at the heart of the Frost Giant’s kingdom, and it’s being perpetrated by none other than Moonstone, Atlas’ former teammate on the Thunderbolts.
War of the Realms: Giant-Man #3 concludes the War of the Realms spin-off series, and it does so with a small Thunderbolts reunion–which is a good way to score points in my book.
That aside, Giant-Man #3 is a solid ending all-around. It brings our heroes to the heart of the Frost Giant realm and has them fighting for their lives to save the women of Florida.
Moonstone is initially presented as an outright villain in this equation, but the comic does give her some credit as the story progresses. She has some good intentions, and her past moral complexity isn’t forgotten.
The story does wrap up character arcs for each of the heroes involved. Some of them almost seem to come from nowhere and aren’t especially well-explained, but it’s something. It makes sure that Giant-Man is still a character journey instead of just another super-powered fantasy battle.
Marco Castiello’s artwork once again impresses with its grittiness cast well against the fantasy elements of the story. There are moments in the comic where I’m not sure where the characters are in relation to one another, and the Frost Giant disguises do lead to me forgetting who is who at other times. This might have been a scripting issue as well, but it does lead to some confusing moments throughout. Regardless, Castiello’s style is great, and it’s aided well by the color art of the talented Rachelle Rosenberg.
War of the Realms: Giant-Man #3 closes out the miniseries with action, heart, and finesse. The characters are once again represented well, the story is compelling and tense, and the artwork is great. There are moments of confusion and resolutions that are debatably unearned, but they are far outweighed by what works well about the book. This one gets a recommendation. Check it out.
War of the Realm: Giant-Man #3 comes to us from writer Leah Williams, artist Marco Castiello, color artist Rachelle Rosenberg, letterer VC’s Joe Sabino, and cover artist Woo Cheol.
Final Score: 8/10
