The third issue of Anna Mercury ties up many of the plot threads established in the first two, kicking proceedings off with an exciting extended action sequence before bringing things back down to Earth -- both literally and figuratively -- by the end of the issue.

Regular readers of Warren Ellis' work will be pleased to see many of his usual writing tics evident here, whether it's the futuristic tech-talk and faux-scientific concepts that are spouted by his characters, or the strong sense of personality and the unique voice that he establishes for his central cast members. However, the writer is relatively restrained here, penning an issue that is lighter on dialogue than his books usually tend to be, and offering in its place an unrelenting and tense action sequence that sees Anna mount an escape from New Ataraxia, leaving Facundo Percio's artwork to carry much of his story alone.

Percio's art is very pleasing: it's consistent, well-defined, realistic enough to be able to be taken seriously, but exaggerated enough that it can get away with bending the rules of physics a little to enhance a moment if the scene demands it. It also doesn't hurt that Anna Mercury's titular heroine is such an attractive character, and Percio obviously enjoys making the most of her buxom curviness. However, he isn't shy of making Anna appear less than attractive if the story demands it, screwing up her face as she takes the strain of dismantling a giant rocket by hand.

However, the artwork's greatest strength -- especially given the demands of this issue's script -- is that it's very dynamic, providing action that flows from panel to panel smoothly and conveys a strong sense of motion and tangible form. Percio doesn't seem interested in crafting hyper-detailed photo-realistic images that come at the expense of telling the story at hand, and that's laudable in a climate that often seems to favor pencilers that include excessive amounts of detail in their artwork, even if it results in static, posed figures. Still, that's not to say that Percio doesn't manage to include some images that are dazzling in their own right, too, such as the full-page splash of Anna floating in space against a white backdrop, a moment of understated psychedelia that feels oddly reminiscent of Kirby-era Fantastic Four.

There's only one sequence in which something gets lost in the translation between Ellis' script and Percio's finished artwork, and that's the scene in which Anna journeys back to the real world via some kind of docking station floating in space. Perhaps this element of the story isn't supposed to be 100% clear just yet, but I found it difficult to follow exactly what was meant to be happening from the artwork alone. This is one sequence that might have benefited from some explanatory captions or dialogue to make things slightly more explicit.

Finally, I have to mention how much I enjoyed the smartly-executed, text-free closing pages that see Anna return to her civilian life, revealing just how much of her appearance in the book so far has been an artifice. It's a perfectly paced montage that pulls the rug out from under those readers who viewed Anna as an archetypal larger-than-life super-heroine, and manages to reconcile the more fantastical elements of her character with her real-world roots very neatly.

In fact, my only major complaint about the issue is that its ending feels a little too final for its own good. Whilst I've enjoyed this story, the closing pages of this issue feel so conclusive that I don't feel hugely interested in whatever story will be offered by the next one. Although that's a very rare (and some might say welcome) problem to have with a comic, I can't help but feel that Ellis could have done a little more to entice us to come back for the next issue here.

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