In Voracious: Appetite For Destruction #3, Nate Willner makes a lot of mistakes in his life. Things like hunting and cooking dinosaurs from another dimension. But one of the biggest blunders he’s ever made is taking his best friend, Starlee, for granted. This issue, she confronts him about that. Plus, Captain Jim makes a plan for taking down Owen.

Review spoiler: I’m going to recommend you read the entire series. There’s two trades and the three floppies of this miniseries. If you want to go in blind, just know that this series is one of my absolute favorites. If you read further there will be spoilers for the first two volumes.

We are all the hero of our own story, right? No matter who you are, your story centers on you. And that’s okay, as long as you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. But what if you’ve forgotten that other people also have their own stories to live? Their own lives to live and their own needs to be met? In fiction, it’s often all too easy for us to forget that. We get engrossed in reading the story of the lead character. In this case Nate Wilner. The other characters have their own dreams, desires and motivations (or at least they should). Markisan Naso plays with this wonderfully in this issue that slows things down a touch in the action department, but hits home in the character and plot development area.

Voracious: Appetite For Destruction #3 allows readers to take a bit of a breather from the hunt for a giant dinosaur bird monster that Owen has become that was the focus of the first two issues, and allows the readers and story to breath before the next confrontation. Naso demonstrates a grasp of pacing and plot development that some have either inexplicably forgotten or never knew about. It’s this kind of mid series breather that allows the writer to double down on the action over the remaining chapters, as hints he’s dropped as seed up to ten issues ago are beginning to flourish into full blown oak trees of awesome.

Jason Muhr‘s art, combined with Andrei Tabacaru‘s colouring once again rises to meet the quality of the writing. There’s a deft subtlety to the way these two create their respective artwork, with each issue still managing to surprise me; whether it’s the body language in the opening scene that feels so natural, or the surprisingly human emotion on the face of Gus Horncrusher… it’s a comic that despite the deliberately slower pace, still remain visually exciting and interesting.

Slowing the pace of a story in the middle can be risky, but the creators have been able to retain the tension in the series with an intense focus on character development as the series begins to wrap. There’s a reason I love this series so much, but it essentially boils down to the raw talent of Naso, Muhr and Tabacaru.

I had been waiting more than six months to read this issue, after getting my hands on the first two via Kickstarter. After such a long wait, I am very happy to say that it didn’t disappoint.

Story: Markisan Naso Art: Jason Muhr Colourist: Andrei Tabucaru
Story: 9.4 Art 9.4 Overall: 9.4 Recommendation: Buy

Action Lab provided a FREE copy for review, but I had already received my copy from Kickstarter.