In the opening scenes, Julia is seen alive and well. However, in Kronas’ eyes he sees three different futures. The first two were Julia’s dead and the final fate was Julia holding her son. At this moment, Kronas alerted Julia that she was about to die in four seconds if she doesn’t move and together they speed to safety. Kronas still needs to take down Decay so he takes the car of an old man (whom looks a lot like Stan Lee) and speeds up time by ramming the car at Decay (with the old man safe of course). When Traveler considers turning himself in to protect Julia, Julia’s boyfriend (Ron) comes to make sure she is okay. With the look in Traveler’s face he knows who “Ron” is. Traveler is shown at an apartment taking his mask off, showing a silhouetted face. Seeing more than one future of him and Julia, Traveler remembers that Julia says he seems familiar.
Knowing that he is the older version of Ron from the future, he can’t be seen with Julia anymore or else she might find out. The next morning Ron is working with his co-workers Martin (Julia’s father) and Colding. When Julia arrives at the lab she mentions about a project that involves the powers of the Split-Second men. Colding thinks that Ron told Julia about the project fires Ron on the spot. Martin quickly tells Colding that he had told Julia about the experiment. Elsewhere, a man named Gabe meets up with the late Bus Driver and Danielle from the previous issue. When the split second man Mortar attacks Gabe, Traveler steps in and has to save him. However when Traveler touches Gabe he realizes that Gabe has met both the Bus Driver and Danielle! Distracted, Mortar knocks him unconscious.
The Traveler series has been really interesting. Stan Lee, Mark Waid, and Chad Hardin have been doing an excellent job with Traveler. Having Traveler’s face silhouetted was really amazing; keeping some mystery on Traveler’s past is a hard task to create in a comic. But with the great experience of Stan Lee, Stan knows how to make a good story without giving much info out. Having older Traveler (Ron) and younger Ron in one area was interesting, because to see the reaction on Traveler’s face when he saw his younger self.
Mark Waid and Chad Hardin are good. As writer, Mark has the task of creating a story about a hero with a dark and mournful past. His work on this tops anything he has done previously; I think he really captures the cryptic in the series. Chad Hardin as an artist makes the series look even better. The artwork is flawless and his drawings for the battle scenes are just cool.
Traveler is one of those series that you should be reading, but aren’t. So why aren’t you reading the series? Start with issue one and join in the fun as Traveler is just 1 of 3 of Stan Lee’s epic return to writing/inspiring new comic book characters!
Overall Score - 8.7/10
