by Mike Favila, Senior Editor
5 Worlds: Book 2 The Cobalt Prince was heavily anticipated in my house. When I received the first installment in the series, 5 Worlds: Book 1 The Sand Warrior, in the mail, I was immediately impressed by a quick browsing of the art and the whole design for the book. I immediately thought this would be something by 7 year old son would enjoy. Right away, he breezed through it and had a million questions about the beacon and the relationships between all the characters. The authors do a great job of world building in The Sand Warrior, fleshing out the world of Oona and her friends Jax Amboy and An Tzu. There are a number of collaborators on this book, including the two brothers Mark and Alexis Siegel and the three artists Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller, and Boya Sun. Surprisingly, there the storytelling and art style doesn’t suffer from this big cast, and there’s no obvious delineation of where one artist obviously started and another finished.
The Sand Warrior ended on a cliffhanger of sorts, with Oona’s realization that the other sand dancer was her long missing sister Jessa. The Cobalt Prince‘s story continues immediately after Oona lights the first beacon. There wasn’t that much backstory in the initial book between the sisters, and emphasized the hole that had been in little sister’s Oona’s life since Jessa left mysteriously. This go around, you get the full flashback. It’s interesting that Oona and her sister were originally Toki, but genetically altered to fit in with the Sand. Given today’s tense racial climate, it’s hard not to read a little into this quiet condemnation between the worlds.
The 5 Worlds series design is well thought out, and consistent between the two books so far. The front hardcover bears the simple logo. The inside back has map of Toki, including some places we’d didn’t encounter in the book. The back of the book has the Toki’s seal/flag. I appreciated the behind the scenes pages in the back, detailing the various revisions on the character and location designs.
There are few dangling plotlines remaining (What about An Tzu’s Back to the Future disappearing hand? Is there going to be a budding love triangle between Jax Amboy and the new Toki Prince?) but I’m sure they will be answered in good time. It’s clear by the resolution of The Cobalt Prince that they intend for a long series not just one per planet. There’s more than enough narrative to cover many books in this world.
The creators have done a good job of letting the medium of comics unravel properly. They don’t talk about and describe the drama (LOOK ITS A SHIP), they actually show the drama. It really shows trust in the young readership and assumes that they will put the pieces together. Immediately after we finished reading it, my son asked when the next book was coming out. That’s a great reaction! We highly recommend picking up this book, and it’s predecessor, 5 Worlds: Book 1 The Sand Warrior, for a great read. Your kids will thank you.
Rating: 
ComicsOnline gives 5 Worlds: Book 2 The Cobalt Prince 5 out of 5 intricate sand dances!
Grab your handful of magic sand and come say hi at ComicsOnline.com, and see us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, iTunes, for everything geek pop culture!
