Abeo And Beyond!
I kind of like how this cover reminds me of the final cover to the related Legion Lost series, but overall it wavers between ugly and just 'meh'. The concept is decent, but Terra looks bizarre, Lightning's not even there but Ridge is, Rose looks weirdly at peace, and Beast Boy's forehead is enormous. Plus the original version of the cover had him green, it appeared they were going to return him to his previous coloring, but apparently that is not the case. The interior art is solid once again, this time the entirety of the issue is done by Diogenes Neves, who draws an excellent Deathstroke. The inking is a little too thick in some pages, especially towards the end, but overall it looks good.
Sharp readers will be able to pick up the issue's big twist fairly early on based on the pacing of the overwhelming deaths and Deathstroke's careful word choice. This kind of negates a good portion of the tension, I feel like this scene could've done a better job at hiding the truth until the big reveal. However, it doesn't change the intensity of Beast Boy's ferocity as he lashes out at Deathstroke over Terra's death at the hands of the Abeo Blade. It's heroic in a very tragic way, to see Beast Boy finally overcome his shyness and hesitation to lash out with such animalistic rage, and actually manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Ravagers.
And Caitlan Fairchild's story gets all kinds of odd as she fights off an army of decaying clones. I'm trying to figure out why her clones decayed, when she was also a clone, as Deathstroke reveals. Readers of Team 7 will already be aware of her apparent death, but honestly how many people is that? Caitlin Fairchild started out as a very strong character with her knowledge of things deep into the conspiracy, but she started to get dull when she got as clueless as everyone else and mulled about with her cloning plot. Plus her arguments with Rose grew extremely tiring, as they all boiled down to exactly the same thing repeated far too often.
In Conclusion: 4/5
Not the best conclusion, but honestly it isn't a bad one. It doesn't end the Harvest Saga, but I had no illusions that it would, Harvest is part of far to large a story to be done now. This issue does kind of close of the loop of this Ravagers side adventure in freedom, but it makes the whole escapade a little pointless in its shortness. It's honestly a shame at this point because Michael Alan Nelson was REALLY turning this series around.
