Review by Ian Keogh
Wale Williams is a bright young man who left Lagoon City in Nigeria after a tragic accident he blamed on his father. Returning to a changed city five years later, his father has disappeared, but bequeathed him a technologically advanced armoured suit, terrorists seem to be colluding with powerful industrial firm Prytek, and there’s another superhero in town.
The elements Roye Okupe combined for Part One were all too familiar to anyone who’s read a fair amount of superhero comics, and artist Sunkanmi Akinboye wasn’t dynamic enough to counteract that. Not much changes here. Following a big revelation many readers may have guessed, Wale’s overconfidence as E.X.O. led him into trouble, and just as Part One closed with Zahra pretty well usurping Wale from his own graphic novel, Part Two opens with more of the same before exploring the deep schisms in the Williams family.
As before, Akinboye’s art is unimpressive. He tells the story well enough, but with stiff figures, the barest of backgrounds and little dynamism. A man in a flying armoured suit ought to impress, yet even had this been published before we’d all seen Iron Man on cinema screens it would still fall short. It says something that the remote controlled robots E.X.O. demolishes look more stylish than he does in his armour.
While establishing Wale followed a derivative path, moving into his main story Okupe shows greater conceptual originality, but barely moves away from being predictable as we learn Oniku’s origin and why he’s determined to overthrow the government. It highlights another downside, that of long sequences not required for the primary story occupying most of a chapter instead of being confined to a few panels of flashbacks. Okupe’s dialogue could also do with a polish. It comes across as stilted in places, as characters explaining to readers instead of talking naturally.
Okupe later cut a deal with Dark Horse, and this was combined with Part One as a new Volume One, with the story continuing in a new Volume Two. In any form it struggles to captivate as a new entry into an overcrowded superhero marketplace.
