Review: Telos

Quick Summary

Pros: There are moments in the first story arc that are satisfying and interesting. Some of the action is briefly entertaining.

Cons: Every one of the volume’s plotlines is left undeveloped by the book’s conclusion. Some plotlines are left completely unfinished and unaddressed. The narrative is fragmented and frustrating. Telos’s unclear power levels lead to action without substance.

Overall: This is a messy and disappointing book in a number of different ways. It starts out with some potential and even manages to have a few interesting moments early on. However, any sense of direction is completely lost as the book progresses and plotlines are both started and dropped without warning. Readers tremendously intrigued by Telos’s story in Convergence may enjoy some of the information in this book but the reading experience will ultimately be disappointing to nearly every reader.

Story

There are moments in reading Telos, by Jeff King, where it feels like the volume may develop into something unique and worthwhile. It starts out with a solid base and proceeds to detail a story filled with deceptions and plans within plans. However, this base is abandoned at the moment where it could become something better and a completely separate plotline is started. This new plotline goes on for a few chapters before also being abandoned and left on a cliffhanger that it appears may never be resolved. It creates a convoluted narrative and a fragmented reading experience that is ultimately unpleasant. In the end, this entire volume is troubled and does not pan out the way one would hope it would.

(spoilers start here)

Telos actually starts out with some potential through its first story arc. It has complex maneuverings between a variety of untrustworthy sources, leaving the reader unsure of what exactly to believe. This allows for a satisfying double-double-cross that ends up being one of the volume’s better moments.

However, significant problems in Telos begin to pop up through its tremendously convoluted narrative. The book starts out with Telos doing Brainiac’s bidding in the hopes that Brainiac will be able to tell Telos where his family can be found. The entire time, a larger conflict between Brainiac and his daughter is teased in both direct and indirect ways. However, this is all completely dropped as Telos is forced to fight off an invasion on the planet. Then, this invasion becomes meaningless as Parallax shows up and steals Telos’s power, teasing the start to another significant storyline. However, this storyline does not develop either and both Telos and all of the volume’s undeveloped plotlines are left completely stranded.

Having plotlines alternate from being incredibly important to being instantly meaningless is immensely frustrating. It prevents the volume from developing any of its potential into anything worthwhile. It also makes the volume’s conclusion very disappointing, as neither the major nor minor plot points have been resolved.

Another problem in Telos is the uncertainty that goes along with nearly all of the volume’s fight scenes. The vast majority of this volume depicts epic battles between Telos and a variety of foes. However, Telos’s powers are never fully explained, leaving readers unsure when he is actually in danger and when he can simply use his powers to instantly dismantle the situation. Even in the book’s most climactic moment, when he is about to be destroyed by Computo, I never felt the tension the moment should have had since I was unsure if Telos could simply teleport away or not. This uncertainty takes a lot of the drama from the book and makes nearly every fight feel like a lot of flash with little actual substance.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork in Telos is alright but doesn’t stand out as anything significantly positive or negative. The book is mostly penciled by Carlo Pagulayan and Igor Vitorino, who manage to maintain consistency across the book’s pages. They also detail a few creative worlds that add to the cosmic feel of this comic while ensuring that the book is filled with detail. However, there are moments when the colors fail to properly convey what character is being depicted at the moment, adding additional confusion to some fight scenes. There are also moments where the text bubbles are not properly colored and make it briefly difficult to understand who is talking to who. Overall, the combination of positives and negatives create a visual experience that does not disappoint but also does not really impress either.

Continuity

Telos directly continues Telos’s story from the conclusion of the Convergence (Review) event.  

The Telos series ends with this volume. Telos’s story, currently, does not continue in any other comic.

This volume also references another comic book, detailed below:

• At one point, Stealth and K-Rot’s role in the Threshold (Review) series is briefly mentioned.
• The Parallax version of Hal Jordan was created after the destruction of Coast City, in Superman: Reign of the Supermen, and the events of the Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight storyline.