Writer: Peter J Tomasi
Artist: Francis Manapul
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Cover Artist: Francis Manapul, Ryan Sook & Germán Peralta
Designer: Steve Blackwell
Editor: Brian Cunningham
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 30, 2025
Rachel Rocketfeller trained to captain a flight to Jupiter. Instead, the astronaut put her career on hold to have Richie. After giving up on having children, life gifted her a son and daughter. Her husband's research cost Rachel their life in the 25th century. Rachel loves her family and flying a news station helicopter. Still, she engages in extreme sports to fill a void. How will Rachel and her family react when Rae faces danger? Let’s grab our hoverboards, leap into The Rocketfellers #5, and find out!
Story
Rae rescued baby sparrows from a Christmas tree. Before her grandmother died, Rose told the girl that trees have a communication network through the ground. Rae seems to sense that connection. Like a priestess of the Delphic Oracle, the girl makes comments about the future open to interpretation. Her brother thinks she is weird. But when Rae faints and their parents react in shock, Richie orders them to take her to a doctor.
Tony Martinez looks out for his community. When it snows, Tony offers to bring the Rocketfellers their mail or pick up their groceries. So when Rachel explains that their Volkswagon van won't start and they want to take Rae to the hospital, Tony tosses Rachel his keys and watches as the family drives away. But Tony will find that befriending Rachel, Roland, and the family carries risks in The Rocketfellers #5.
In Peter J Tomasi's story, Roland is a 25th-century bioengineer. His nano-borgs have reconstructed an eyeball from its dead husk. Cronex searches the centuries for traces of the family, hoping to recapture Roland for his knowledge and research. Yet when danger threatens the Rocketfellers, it comes from 21st-century Russia.
Like Rachel, Richie lost a future that challenged him. His parents restrict his use of anything that could garner notice from the time agents. But Roland and Rachel are so wrapped up in their lives that they don’t know that Richie gets detention at school or hacks offshore accounts on his bedroom computer. While the Cronex agent Raina tracks the family through time, Russian mobsters trace their missing money to Richie’s home in The Rocketfellers #5.
Art
Amid scenes of domestic harmony as the Rocketfellers sleep and rise for breakfast, one of the Sparrows Rae adopted finds the reconstructed eyeball in Roland's basement lab. Scenes follow the family’s first visit to a 500-year-old hospital (from their perspective), a team of Russian suits driving around Olympia, Washington, to Yuri and Nicolas reclining in a room below sea level on the Baltic Sea. Instead of watching fish exploring ocean wrecks on the sea floor, the diminutive mobsters clothed in full military attire cover their eyes in immersion glasses.
While Francis Manapul lavishes a loaded palette of color on The Rocketfellers #5, pink overtakes panels to convey what Yuri and Nicholas see. Green and blue dominate hospital scenes, while greenish light streams through the undersea windows. Exterior lights on the family home cast brightening rays on a blue evening while the Rocketfellers await the medical staff’s diagnosis. One noteworthy panel shows a man standing in the checkerboard tile hall of the Rocketfeller home, Rodney's greenlit basement lab, and the intervening stairs as white lines on a streaked charcoal background.
Rob Leigh portals black uppercase letters into white dialogue balloons in The Rocketfellers #5. The letters grow bold for inflection and enlarge and change color for raised voices. Rae’s wavering lines of small text convey her wooziness. Balloons grow spiky when characters undergo stress. Purple letters in oval lavender boxes locate us in time and space. Sound effects help us hear birds tweeting, hands knocking, Rex barking, and high-tech equipment breaking as danger threatens the family on two fronts. A fact sheet on Richie featuring lowercase letters closes this family saga. Thanks to Image Comics and Ghost Machine for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
When their daughter faints, the family flies into crisis mode. But a trip to the hospital leaves the family home open to threats. While showcasing how Rex greets uninvited visitors, The Rocketfellers #5 hints at interconnections between little Rae, Rodney's basement laboratory project, and the agent pursuing the 25th Century family through time.
Rating 9.4/10
To look inside see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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