Shades of Blue is another in the rare but growing field of teenage drama by way of super-hero comic, a pretty solid bet in these days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville and X-Men: Evolution. However, Shades of Blue doesn't quite hit the balance between super-heroic genre conventions and teenage drama conventions as well as the aforementioned television shows, and while I'm more impressed with this issue than I was with the first issue I sampled, I still think that more sophisticated interaction between the characters would benefit the series. That said, I'm interested in the link between the "Ice Queen" and her ice powers, and Slayton turns in some solid, if no frills, artwork.
I have to be honest, what interested me most about this book was the opening sequence, featuring a depiction of a young girl ice skating and being berated by her coach. It was such an unusual thing to see in a comic, and Slayton really did an excellent job depicting the beauty and grace of the sport. In addition, Ilsa's flaws and difficult home life made her more interesting to me than the the protagonist, who is a bit too nice and has a bit too much of an easy life to really interest me.
Actually, that was one of my complaints about the previous issue of Shades of Blue I read was that the problems were a bit toothless, and the characters all a bit too nice. That's still true in part in this issue, but I thought that the introduction of a bully and a rather creepy mysterious figure who approaches Ilsa gave the book a little welcome darkness. In addition, though the friendly banter between Heidi and K.T. is sometimes a little too precious, I found it to be genuine and funny for the most part.
On the art side of things, I thought that Slayton provided some good storytelling, conveying all the basic emotions and story elements necessary to keep things going. As I said earlier, I thought their approach to the ice skating was terrific, really showing off the grace and fluidity necessary for such a sequence. However, the lack of color, while understandable from a budget point-of-view, does become a bit grating when the color of the protagonist's hair or Ilsa's outfit is a key story point, and though Harris covers with dialogue, it does seem odd to rest story points on color when you can't show it.
There's a lot of potential in Shades of Blue, and it certainly has potential to reach a mainstream audience, given how popular this mixture of elements has been in other media. However, I'm still feeling mostly like Nacion & Harris would be better off writing a straight teen drama/comedy, as the super-hero elements feel tacked on, and not as thematically linked to the ongoing teen elements as they probably should be.
