Catholic-ometer: 3.5 of 5
Enjoyability: 5 of 5
I recently reviewed the first two volumes of PS238, and all of the general points that I made there apply to this third volume as well. It's an enjoyable comic, fun and positive; about superhero children who go to a school for superpowered beings. The concept has been done before, but unlike other comics that have approached this (most notably several "X-men" books,) this book embraces the old-school silliness of the Silver Age, without the poor writing quality that tended to come along with it. The stories are enchanting, entertaining and fun, and never depressing or angsty, like the aforementioned X-men books. Characters develop and change, and stories never become too dark to be enjoyable, even when bad things do sometimes happen. In short, it gets nearly everything right, avoids the major missteps that comic books have made over the course of comic book history, and produces quite possibly the finest series of superhero comics ever released in America. All that, plus you can read it with kids.
Again these comics are all in black and white, and they're supposed to be that way. Also, most of them can be found online as part of Aaron Williams' internet webcomic of the same name, though a few (such as explanation of Dr. Positron being more than one android,) are only found in trade form.
Five issues of PS238 are collected in this volume, beginning with issue 10, in which Tyler (the non-powered main character) is given the task of teaching a fellow student named Malphast how to be human. Malphast is the "son" of an angel and a demon, and comes off as a little like the comic book character Spawn in terms of his appearance and abilities, and in issue 6, he challenges a school bully to an extradimensional game of Four Square.
As a Christian, I take some offense at the depiction of angels and demons as being "part of the same whole" and "not really two opposing forces." Nevertheless, you could defend these theological claims on the grounds that angels and demons are essentially the same (it's just that one fell from Grace and the other didn't.) You could also point out, correctly, that it's impossible for any demon to oppose God directly. Still, the scenes with the demons and angels tend to sound a bit more new-agey than is good for them.
In issue 7, Tyler is accidentally brought to "the Castle Beyond Time and Space," where there are mirrors that show you alternate versions of yourself; other possible worlds, and books that contain the knowledge of the universe. Tyler is eventually sent back into the flow of time, to stop Zodon from building a working time machine. This leads to the next issue.
Issue 8 is a time travel story. Tyler is yanked back and forth through time in a seemingly chaotic way, and it's implied that there will be more time-traveling later. However, this story, I think, really shines. Williams writes time travel better than anyone else I've ever seen in my life. Characters show up suddenly out of a time vortex, refer to things we haven't seen yet, then disappear just as quickly. Then, later on, we see some of the things they were referring to, and we start to understand the sort of nonlinear cause-and-effect that brought this chain of events about. It's magnificent. Probably the best issue in the collection, which is saying a lot.
Issues 9 and 10 revolve around a metahuman called "the Rainmaker," who has the power to eliminate the powers of other metahumans, amplify them, or cause them to rage out of control. He assumes that the "Rainmaker Program" at PS238 is still the same government program that imprisoned him as a child, and that he has to "rescue" the Rainmaker kids (the kids with non-combat-oriented superpowers.) He storms through PS238, and takes the kids with him. Then it's up to Tyler, with some help from the Revenant, to rescue them.
This volume contains some of the best PS238 stories of all. As I said, I've never entirely approved of how Williams writes angels and demons, but the rest of the stories are that much better, and on the whole, I found it a very enjoyable read, and a fitting continuation of one of the best comic series of all time.
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