Alienated #3 Review
After a Covid-19 enforced delay from its original release date, Alienated #3 finally landed on my doorstep today. I called it an early birthday present and got stuck in. In issue 1 we met Sam-Sam-Sam and Chip, their hungry alien infant, and got a taste (as did Chip) of what they are capable of together. In #2 the stakes were raised as the trio tested what Chip was capable of and one of them got carried away. I said in my review of that issue that I hoped as the series progressed we would get issues that singled out the other two members of the trio as #2 focused on Samuel. It seems I got my wish.
Synopsis
It’s Samantha’s turn with Chip — the dangerous alien — but everything starts to go wrong when she instigates a confrontation with her ex-boyfriend. Scared and angry, Samantha struggles with the decision to use Chip’s powers for her own benefit. But not even she knows what the true consequences will be…
Alienated #3
In the latest issue the story focuses on Samantha who has been keeping Chip busy. They have been testing his abilities by getting him to retrieve peculiar things that Samantha thinks of. The trio connect when Samir realises it’s Samuel who has been making the anonymous vlogs since he used footage from their, uh, encounter with Leon (#1) in his latest.
Sam-Sam-Sam bicker until Chip picks up on a particular thought of Samantha’s, a boy. She quickly activates her “privacy settings” to block out the other two while she goes deeper.
What follows in #3 is a powerful, emotional story that explains a lot about Samantha’s behaviour. Her self-imposed isolation at school, her desperate desire to leave town and start afresh, and the way she reacted to the task she was set at school in #1. All of these are linked to what we discover in this issue. It’s a sensitive issue and it’s handled brilliantly by writter Si Spurrier. It feels like he’s really got a handle on these outcast teens.
There’s also the continuing thread of Samuel’s mother’s investigation in Leon’s disappearance which gains momentum when the results of Samuel’s time with Chelsea in #2 become apparent.
Psychadelic!
Once again Chris Wildgoose’s art is absolutely gorgeous. The page where we see Samantha and Chip and all the items she’s had him retrieve, I couldn’t help but feel that there were a couple of easter eggs in the assortment for fans of his other work. There’s also a really neat “between the panels” trick that Chris uses to full effect in this issue that almost made me drop the comic to applaud. It’s THAT good. I absolutely love the psychadelic breakdown style used when Chip is doing his thing too, and André May’s colours really make that pop.
Alienated #3 is available digitally on ComiXology, physically via Forbidden Planet or your local comic book store.
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