REBEL

A graphic adaptation of Rebel, the 2019 conclusion of Lu’s Legend series.

It’s 2142, and Eden Bataar Wing and his brother, Daniel Altan, the former hero of the Republic’s revolution, have retired to lead a relatively quiet life in the gamified society of Ross City, Antarctica. Eden is a star engineering student at the university, about to graduate early, but he’s miserable. He has nightmares about the abuse he endured during the revolution, yet he can’t talk about them with Daniel, who’s become an intelligence service agent in Ross City. He’s also relentlessly bullied: Although Ross City is supposed to be meritocratic, with digital points awarded or detracted for prosocial and antisocial actions, the system is easy to manipulate. Pressa Yu, Eden’s only friend, is low-ranked but brilliant. Eden’s attempt to earn a little cash to help Pressa’s family goes haywire, pulling him into organized crime—and much worse. This adaptation is straightforward, with workmanlike full-color panels; aside from the lovely, evocative, graffitied walls in the gritty urban streets, the illustrations mostly achieve straightforward competence. Eden and Daniel are both blond, blue-eyed, and light-skinned; their biracial heritage, barely discussed in the prose original, doesn’t really come through in this medium.

A perfectly adequate conversion to the graphic format that doesn’t enhance the original but may please series fans.