Telos #3 Review and *SPOILERS*

Steam: The Most Powerful Energy In The Universe

Written By: Jeff King
Art By: Stephen Segovia, Igor Vitorino, Jason Paz, Marc Deering, Dan Green, Hi-Fi, Peter Steigerwald, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 9, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Telos just needs a hug and having the kind of mug he's got, I guess the only people who are willing to do that are his family, so Telos is doing his damnedest to find out where those nonjudgmental folks are hiding in the Universe.  Probably hiding from his Rocky Dennis face.  Anyway, to get the actual coordinates to where Brainiac stashed them away, Telos struck a deal with Brainiac to go to his home planet Colu, meet up with Techne, the rebel leader of that world and download the backup of Brainiac's memories from the planet database.  That sounds all fine and good, but once most of the plan was achieved, Telos' new friends he met along the way want to complete their missions as well..... Like Captain Comet wants proof that the Psions are experimenting on people and the rebel leader Techne wants to overthrow the tyrant leader of Colu, Computo.  Telos just can't catch a break and that becomes overwhelmingly apparent when at the end of the last issue they were confronted by Validus.  Let's jump into this issue and see if everyone can get what they want from this Wizard of Oz type scenario and if they can even get past the raging Computo controlled Validus.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Validus just ravaging the shit out of our heroes' minds and Captain Comet uses his telepathic powers to try and keep the monster's attention so Telos could land a serious blow.  It's Validus though and he's not going down that easy.  It would take something like opening a portal into space, pulling him through and then shattering his brain glass to take him down........ and thankfully, that's just what Telos does and our heroes are free to continue roaming about Colu.  It's just too bad that Techne uses the knowledge of where Telos' family is as a bargaining chip to make sure that he plays along with all of the characters wants and needs.  If I was Telos at this point, I'd open another damn portal and toss everyone who wasn't Techne out in the cold with Validus just to prove a point........ Well, maybe not K-Rot because I have a warm place in my heart for a foul mouthed, robot legged, space pirate version of Captain Carrot.  

While our heroes make their way further into this complex on Colu, Computo is loosing his shit because he found out that a virus was let loose in his systems and I have to imagine that Techne was the one responsible....... a little techno HPV for dat ass.  As we saw in the cliffhanger to the first issue, Brainaic is actually working with Computo and the two aren't really getting along because Computo believes that Telos is doing a little too much damage to his society, even if he is supposed to lead Computo to Techne....... and Computo isn't wrong because the destruction continues...... only thing is though, it's not that much destruction if you actually think about it.  

Apparently, this secret Psion cloning lab is only accessible through a Brainiac shrinking process and all it really does is confuse the hell out of you.  We've got the Psions trying to clone hybrids of both Techne and Comet and even though the test subjects are the real proof that Comet needs to show that the Psions are doing terrible things in the Universe, he destroys them because they're like all the cloned Ripley's in Alien Resurrection and our team is forced to fight the Psions and the remaining clones.......... which we find out are infused with Steam.  Now, I don't know if I'm just a big dummy or what, but even Telos seemed confused when Comet and Techne just talk about Steam being the most powerful energy in the Universe all willy nilly.  It's never fully explained and the fight comes down to one of the Psions setting off the self destruct in the lab, which we're informed with the addition to the "steam" in the room, the explosion won't only take out the lab, but the entire facility.  Don't worry though because Telos teleports everyone out.......... and somehow they're enlarged again........ and we don't see any exploding facilities......... I have no idea what the point of any of that was.

In the end, Techne wants to completely destroy Computo so that her people won't have to live under a tyrant's regime any longer and to do this, Captain Comet, K-Rot, Stealth and her will have to destroy Computo's backup program satellite, while Telos goes and destroys his main body.  Seems like a lot of work to have a family reunion, but it seems that the reunion might have to be postponed because when our issue closes we see Brainiac at Computo's side and the two inform Telos that they've captured his friends and with a brutal rebuilt Validus being the one in charge of their capture, they might not survive.

That's it for this issue of Telos and even though it appears to be a straight forward story right out of the gate, this issue is all over the place with the story it depicts and the strange panel layout, coupled with dialog that goes between over explaining to not explaining things at all, that just makes this issue a bit of a nightmare to read.  There are some really interesting aspects to the story going on here, but the problem is, they're all jammed together and they never get a chance to fully be explored.  Like, I would love to see why K-Rot or Captain Comet are there or what Comet and Techne's relationship is in dealing with the Psions, but it's quickly swept under the rug in absurd ways and Telos comes off as almost the most uninteresting character in this book because he's just the raw power, who's only motivation is finding his family, while the other characters have what appears to be fully fleshed out lives.  Hopefully in the future, this will be a title that will come together and be a surprise hit to me, but as of right now, it's just lackluster.  Even though I enjoy the art for the most part in this series, the panel layout at times ruins it for me because of how erratic it can be and other times the panels are so small that we loose detail and I have a hard time knowing what the hell I'm looking at. 

Bits and Pieces:

Telos is a book with a lot of cool characters and a lot of cool ideas floating around, but the problem that arises with this issue is that they're all thrown together at once and nothing has a chance to really be explored.  It's because of this that a lot of the fun is lost and even my own willingness to want to get to know what's going on in this series because of how confused I find myself from scene to scene.  The art continues to be enjoyable though, but some of the panel layouts add to my confusion and I hate feeling like a big dummy when reading a comic....... that happens enough in real life. 

4.5/10