By Zack Quaintance — When I wrote about the first issue of Heist, or How to Steal a Planet, I was most impressed with the balance the book struck between pacing and exposition, possessing as it did ample world-building intermingled with big ideas. That’s all still in this second issue, sort of underlying a sophomore chapter that makes it clearer what this book aims to do — which from my perspective seems to be mash-up classic heist stories with the type of high-concept, deeply philosophical science fiction that Vault Comics does better than any other publisher in the industry.

This is also a comic that seems determined to get somewhere important fast (for lack of a better way of phrasing that), and is moving to that spot at an excellent and strong pace. For example, as far as heist stories go, in the debut issue we got our team mostly put together. There’s some more of that here in Heist, or How to Steal a Planet #2, but for the most part we’re moving right along, starting to get deeper into the tense team dynamics that are giving this story an excellent underlying conflict. For example, I loved the bit early in this comic where our hero Glane and his “ally” Eddy visit the latter’s shooting range, and Eddy has an untouched rendering of Glane hanging in his shooting range, which is so far untouched because he hasn’t “decided on the first shot, yet.”

Nobody likes our protagonist, really. He’s a bonafide (if potentially misunderstood) pariah, and for one reason or another, the rest of the crew he’s assembled all have good cause to do him dirty at some point. That’s great for pithy exchanges and edgy stakes, for sure. I just love team dynamics where characters are keeping secrets in comics, but this book goes a bit past that, giving most of the folks involved here good cause to harbor secret plans against our guy Glane. It’s great.

The scripting  and artwork are both excellent, too. Writer Paul Tobin, artist Arjuna Susini, and colorist Vittorio Astone are clearly having fun working together on this comic. Tobin’s dialogue for every character is distinct, lighting basically his entire cast with shades of gray and separate agendas. What they all have in common, however, is a unified disdain for how their entire freaking planet has come to be owned by a massive corporation. In this time of discordant American politics, I feel like this is a unifying factor in our real world as well (even if we can’t agree on how to address and certain populations seem bent on rushing into the jaws of our mega-sized private sector monoliths...but I digress). 

Susini and Astone, meanwhile, are just game for any and all of it, bringing their ample storytelling talents to bear on the big ideas layering each and every panel of this book. I think the third page here expertly illustrates just how versatile their work is in the service of this story. In the space of six panels (one of which is inset), we get a violent shooting, absurd heights of hedonistic opulence, several tense looks exchanged between Glane and Eddy, and a panel that shows a knife landing in an exposed foot to illustrate a theoretical point Eddy is making. This is perhaps the best single-page encapsulation of the reasons I enjoy this comic — Heist, Or How to Steal a Planet is flexible, witty, and fearless, a great comic about unlikely frenemies coming together to battle unchecked corporate control...and I really can’t think of a better concept for our times.

Overall: Heist, or How to Steal a Planet #2 builds on the strong work of the debut issue to continue developing this pinpoint metaphor for our times, in which a group with much baggage and mistrust comes together to battle unchecked corporate control. 9.0/10

Heist, or How to Steal a Planet #2
Writer: Paul Tobin
Artist: Arjuna Susini
Colorist: Vittorio Astone
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
Designer: Tim Daniel
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.