Hinterkind, written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by Francesco Trifogli is a blatant letdown and issue 10 is no exception. This may seem harsh but we’re going to explore why issue 10 is still following this format of poor execution.
The latest installment of Hinterkind ,is still developing what the last nine issues were setting up, a tipping point in the Sidhes’ hierarchy and the continued foreshadowing of a formation of a multispecies army to confront the militant Vampire dominion. This should have been and could have been awesome; sadly it still isn’t as every character is just as bland as before. Prosper is still as flat a character as ever and Jon serves as nothing more than another generic action star. The mediocrity doesn’t stop there as Telsche’s relationship with her children–Tersia and Severin–is more predictable than a run-of-the-mill Saturday morning cartoon.There’s so much potential to build something engaging and entertaining out of these relationships yet readers are left with an uninteresting reading experience.
Prosper still doesn’t want to be the cause of bloodshed and even when she is, she shows no real signs of change or inner struggle with her behavior. These incidents would be the perfect time to slip in some slight monologue where she reflects upon her actions. Yet there is no such monologue nor is there any real dialogue about it. Jon as always is just there to save Prosper’s life and nothing more. This issue started to make strides in developing a functioning cooperative relationship between these two yet it still jumped the gun too quickly with action scenes and left the reader with incomplete characters. At this stage of the game and with events of this scale taking place, characters should be in functioning and well-rounded relationships.
The same incomplete relationship is had between Telsche and her children. Readers still know too little about these characters to even form an opinion of them and every chance there is for development an action scene takes place. Telsche’s death was anti-climactic; the buildup was only budding and suddenly she was wiped out of existence. Tersia and Severin are fragmented characters and they would have been closer to being rounded in design and purpose if they were given the time to flesh out and actually develop as functioning characters. This may have been possible if Telsche’s life was prolonged and the hatred between her children for her in conjunction with their thirst for power was employed as a common core. With that common core there was the potential for the propagation of the growth of individual personality traits; however it still serves as their only characteristic.
Due to the lack of pacing, everything is happening too quickly. Readers can become lost in what is happening, and may become bored with the series because of that. The characters are disinteresting, they lack personality and development, and the story lacks any significant hook with which to draw the reader into the world they’re portraying. Personally, I have high hopes that this series will eventually balance out. It has a lot working in its favor, including a setting of a post-apocalyptic society inhabited by ancient mythical creatures. It’s a unique combination of ideas, and in my opinion it would be a shame if it were not utilized to its potential due to bland character design.
PROS:
•It seems the series is starting to attempt to pull its characters together and may develop the relationships
necessary for interesting characters in future issues.
•Events are starting to form a cohesive story.
CONS:
•The story is still heavily fragmented, there’s too much going on and while the story is starting to work towards a
clear idea of what’s going on a lot of work has to be done yet.
•The character development is still weak
•Relationships are almost non-existent past the thin flat layer that has existed since issue one.
•Action scenes are still the biggest culprit for hindering story progression when they should be enhancing it.
