Ivar, Timewalker #1

I first spied Ivar, Timewalker, Fred Van Lente and Clayton Henry's newest, in a Valiant sampler they were giving away at my local comics shop. It's mostly by chance that my interest was piqued. I normally don't look at samplers much (I get too distracted by whatever it is I went to the comics store to buy), but it found its way into my bag and then was the only thing I had to read at work. I'm pretty glad that it was there, though.

The sampler had the first ten or so pages of the first issue, along with a variety of stories, promos, and the usual ads, some of which may or may not now be origami stars on my desk. But, those first pages of Ivar, Timewalker were intriguing.

Ivar, Timewalker #1

Written by Fred Van Lente

Illustrated by Clayton Henry

Colors by Brian Reber

Published by Valiant Entertainment

Ivar follows  Neela, a snarky female scientist about to discover time travel, and Ivar, a time traveler from the future, as they run from bad guys called prometheans, adventure across time and space, and generally encounter havoc. Now Neela is trying to come to terms with time and the multiverse while running for her life.

Has anyone ever read a story about time travel without a little cheese? This story has it's share of cheesy moments like a Dr. Who-ish "Run!"s and some self-aware poking at paradoxes. But they're well balanced with Neela's more scientific and serious personality.

Overall, the story was funny, without losing a sense of interest.

Van Lente sets up the plot very quickly, establishing motivations, villains, and even some interesting plot twists. While some of the plot points could probably have been delayed for a while, I'm pretty sure that the choice to reveal some of the twists really means that the story overall is going to focus on character growth and development in an interesting, more concentrated way than it would otherwise.

The art in the story is well done with some really cool full page spreads. Henry really plays with dimension across his pages and delivers the feeling of time travel in a fun way. There's a full-page spread of the two jumping through time that just made my night when I saw it. The colors are vivid and the different point-of-view shots are a nice touch.

Make sure to check out the variant covers. Raul Allen, Jorge Molina, David Aja, and Barry Kitson did some great work on them.

The next issue is coming out on February 21st.

To see another Panel Patter take on this issue, please refer to James Kaplan's review here.