Trees #5 Review: Short and Sweet
Trees is unique, interesting, and perplexing. Issue number five is no different. If you’ve been keeping up with the series, you already know the method of storytelling in this book; we follow a different set of seemingly unrelated characters around the globe that are dealing with life amongst the Trees in different ways. In no way is this more prevalent than in this issue of Trees. While reading this issue, you are going to be weaving in and out of these characters’ different stories from page to page, and even from panel to panel. While this seems a little convoluted at first, it ends up being very fluid and easy to read. You can just feel the buildup happening right before your very eyes.
Both Warren Ellis and Jason Howard do a wonderful job of making the transitions between each of the main characters as smooth as can be. Howard, in particular, is showing us that he knows exactly what he is doing when it comes to setting up a wide variety of emotional atmospheres. His work here is commendable.
All this doesn’t mean that Trees is without fault. We are five issues in and there is a lot going on but I still get the feeling that we are just scratching the surface here. I really don’t know what the “glue” is that is holding everything together between the characters we are reading about. We are five issues in to an amazing exposition, but that’s about it, this is just one long exposition. Trees is turning out to be a slow burn, but this may be just about as good as a slow burn can get.
If you held off on reading Trees, you may have made a good decision. By that, I don’t mean that you aren’t missing anything, this is a great series so far. I mean you are in for one hell of a treat when you pick up the trades and enjoy all of this greatness at once.
Score: 8.0