I’d give it the subheading, ‘for better or for worse’ - because issue two is better in some areas and worse in others.

First off, the inevitable roll call.

Chopra wrote the original sci-fi story, as I have already mentioned, but the adaptation is by Ron Marz (Witchblade, Green Lantern), and the adaptation is what I’m reviewing. As I said in the first issue, the characters are very straight forward, reacting in the way you would expect in all but two scenes. In one of these scenes, someone gets hurt. Bad. After a moment of sheer horror, the other two go back to arguing and figuring things out. In the other, our hero goes through some kick-ass, if a little crude, torture and doesn’t even cry like a little girl once. Go on, lad. Edison George (John Woo’s Seven Brothers) is still on pencils, and his art work is still pretty darn nifty.

On to the story. It picks up where issue one left off (which may still be available for download on Virgin Comics’ My Space page) and I have to say, it does hve some new-ish concepts in there. The way the Door works for example is a nice touch. As is the kid with the ability to make stuff out of thin air. The fact that his brain is a toilet of filth and bad TV was quite funny, yet true to life.

But it’s not all roses. The bad guys looked a little too Pakistani for my liking, and it does make me wonder if this is going to be an Indo-Pak ‘we’re better than you cos we got Bollywood’ affair. The Pakistani-look-alike bad guys raid a temple, gun down a bunch of unarmed priests and nick all their golden relics. Because they’re evil. All this is done with turbans wrapped around their faces. So many questions unanswered! Are they an alternate reality version of the Taliban? Do they have Nookiller weapons? Will we see a Zorro-like masked Bin Laden figure? Shouldn’t it be an American soldier doing the torturing? Tune in next month to find out!

Sorry, I get carried away. Still though, apart from the evil-Pakistani-terrorist bad guys, which you may or may not think adds a more realistic touch to a wacky sci-fi, reality-hopping story, I enjoyed this issue more than the previous one. It felt better, but not by much.

Still, if you enjoy reading scenes where helpless priests are gunned down mercilessly, can relate to a father and son who argue with each other even at gunpoint, or just really wanna know if Zorro Bin Laden (he fight for de pepolz!) appears, then keep reading Beyond. You never know, I’m good at predicting this kind of stuff.