Image Comics Review: Supreme Blue Rose #3

Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Tula Lotay

Minor spoilers ahead.

As with the previous two issues, Supreme Blue Rose #3 opens with Diana Dane in a dream. She rides in the back of a limo that is travelling along a road between the earth and the moon that is lined with blue roses. An unidentified passenger explains that 12,000 years of human history have been devoted to getting from one end of this road to the other, a quarter million mile journey. He also speaks to her about universal revision. Diana encounters a large stone arch that features a likeness of Ethan Crane, the man is trying to connect to the supposed plane crash in Littlehaven. He is a defender of the revision. Diana is woken by Linda, the limo driver, upon arriving at their destination. They speak of the most recent episode of Professor Night (the longest running adventure serial ever). Next we see Darius Dax meeting with the princess of Saturn in a bar that was not a part of Dax’s complex until this moment. They talk in circles about knowledge and power as he tries to get answers out of her. The meeting is interrupted when Diana calls Dax to explain that she thinks the plane crash is faked. He tells her to check it out anyway. While she continues to work in her hotel room, she records notes, revealing that she has issues with some form of delusions or mental illness in the past. Ghostly blue characters begin appearing around her while she talks, culminating with Ethan Crane. When he speaks, he mirrors Diana’s own words. He then starts to emanate some sort of power before expanding into nothingness, leaving behind swirling papers and a red triangle that hangs in the air. The next day, Diana goes to Littlehaven. She decides to walk and passes a row of blue roses along the way. She runs into a crashed medical vehicle that looks like it came from WWII, and a man in a space suit covered in graffiti or some sort of tribal markings. He asks if she knows how to get to the secret headquarters.

We’re getting into some deep territory now. This issue of Supreme Blue Rose begins to tie some things together and we begin to get an inkling of what Warren Ellis may be up to, but at the same time, the mysteries continue to pile up. I’m really beginning to get a sense that Diana Dane’s dreams may be more real than her waking world, but it’s hard to say for sure. The dreams could just be a means of communication. I feel like there’s something more to Darius Dax, something sinister, but I don’t know what it is yet. The princess of Saturn keeps showing up and seems to know a lot but reveals little. Even Linda the limo driver seems to know more than Diana Dane, which actually works out for the book. The protagonist is as lost as the reader, which keeps us engaged in the mystery. And man, am I ever engaged. I really want to know what’s going on. Especially when Supreme finally shows up. Three issues in and he’s nowhere to be seen, and his alter ego, Ethan Crane, has only been glimpsed in video or as a ghostly image. I also want to know if Professor Night will turn out to be more than a tv show. I mean, he kind of has to be, right?  Ellis really knows how to pull you in and keep you invested.

Tula Lotay’s art continues to impress. It is absolutely gorgeous. This issue provides Lotay a variety of environments to draw to really flex her artistic muscles and really amps up the sci-fi weirdness. The two page spread near the beginning of the book that depicts the road between the earth and moon is really quite beautiful. I wouldn’t mind using it as a desktop background or having a print of it on the wall. In fact, the entire opening dream sequence of this issue is pretty spectacular, depicting some awesome sci-fi elements. Her characters look natural even when they are beautiful women with bizarre floating pearl necklaces  and faces obscured by a neon red haze, or astronauts covered in oraange markings that have apparently just crashed an ambulance in the woods.

Supreme Blue Rose is a wonderfully weird sci-fi book with the hook of a mystery. It’s the kind of thing I’ve come to expect from Warren Ellis, and even though I get a little confused at times, I’m loving every moment of it.

Rating: 4.5/5