To be frank, this is a marked step down from an already flawed first issue, exacerbating all of its problems while introducing new ones. The page count is the single most severe of these - trying to adapt two episodes within a mere 20 pages means that even more is cut out than in issue 1, almost universally to the story's detriment. Several full scenes (Uzi & N returning to the bunker, Uzi visiting Doll's home, N & Uzi reuniting on the way to prom) are omitted, while many more (like the revisit to Doll's home) are cut down significantly. Many of these moments were important in establishing characterization, building tension, or otherwise helping people get emotionally involved in the story, and removing them results in an issue that feels even more rushed than its predecessor - breezing through plot beats without letting much of anything breathe. Having two different climactic fight scenes doesn't help - the second (what was originally the climax of episode 3) is written and paneled so fast that I'm not sure a total newcomer would even understand what's happening. For a series that was meant to expose Murder Drones to new audiences, that's a serious flaw.

To be fair, writer Wyatt Kennedy does make an effort to merge the two plots together: what was originally episode 2's climax is interrupted by a new scene directly setting up the events of episode 3, with its original opening scene playing out before resolving the first plot and quickly transitioning to the second. However, this results in one of the worst examples of the breakneck pacing directly impacting how the story comes across: right after Uzi & N defeat eldritch J, Khan rushes in and almost immediately starts talking about sending Uzi to prom. The original episode let the implications of "J"'s talent for illusions and relationship to N & V breathe, with Uzi clearly uncertain and distrustful of them for nearly a whole episode afterward. None of this is present here, barring a single vestigial line ("Which parts of that were real?") that gets brushed aside - and thus a major source of drama, and thus emotional involvement, is lost. I've always felt that the original show's habit of never taking itself seriously to be one of its biggest problems, and the comic worsens that by cutting a lot of the more sincere moments while keeping and adding most of the jokes. (I'm also mixed on Liam Vickers' quirky sense of humor - very quippy and "millennial," for lack of a better descriptor - and Kennedy's attempts to emulate it in newly-written dialogue almost always fall flat.)

What makes this even worse is that the artwork, usually the comic's strongest element, has some noticeable deficits this time around. While I wasn't always a fan of how Jo Mi-Gyeong drew the drones' expressions in issue 1, here they tend to be overly similar or unfitting for the occasion. For example, in the second episode of the show, there's a brief gag where Uzi gets carried away and declares "I am GOD!" while striking a suitably overdramatic pose. Here, she just shrugs and keeps her mouth open, neutering the joke's impact. The very last panel has a more severe example: after she uses the Solver for the first time and Doll teleports away without answering any of her many questions, Uzi gets frustrated and yells "I hate it here!!" Her face and body language in the original episode fit how she's feeling, but here she just looks befuddled to an almost comedic degree, which clashes significantly with the context of the scene. (That N just stands by her without any real expression on his face, barring perhaps "dull surprise," doesn't help.)

The bigger problem, however, is that some art is blatantly copy-pasted in ways that introduce continuity errors. Doll's first scene has two panels that are identical to each other, using a pose that seems to have been drawn for one of the issue's final panels. I don't have any issues with the first part in context - she's taking a moment to respond to someone else asking her a question, so representing the beat with identical posing helps sell that - but the second part is a problem. (It's not very noticeable, but she changes her outfit midway through the issue, meaning that for those two panels she's very subtly wearing something different.) What's much more blatant is the later scene where N heads back to his landing pod - the establishing shot and subsequent panel are lifted straight from the first issue, complete with J clearly being the only drone visible in the former. Now, let me be clear: I don't like calling artists of any kind "lazy," since I have no idea what constraints they're working under (especially in the American comic book industry). Jo Mi-Gyeong is clearly not a bad artist - the splash pages here are consistently good, for one - so I can only speculate that some sort of external factor was impacting her work for this particular issue.

I am aware that Oni has said they will go back and add more pages to issue 1 (as well as issues 3 and beyond). I really wish they'd give this one the same treatment - I get the feeling it needs expansion the most out of all of them.

I would give it 3 stars but it'd be ignoring that two episodes were made in to a Frankenstein's monster of a book that doesn't include scenes from show that set the tone like eldritch J body reveal from episode 2 and Doll's house getting ready for prom and exploring it after battle from episode 3. Other thing that I didn't enjoy and think was weak in execution was battle with eldritch J where whole bit of mind games was cut out and final battle with her ended abruptly without any recognition of it. Jokes where cut out. Back to episode 3 exploring Doll's house after battle was important scene with high tension that showed how unsettling place it was and how disgusted Uzi is in her new appreciation of worker drone oil which sets up episode 4 of main series. Anyways there are positives like good art and changes in story to accommodate merger of episodes however I don't like it. As you can read I'm not happy how this issue turned out which is why I wrote my opinion about it in hopes that it will be changed for adaptation of episode 5 because I've read issue 3 and it lived up to standard in my mind.

Two 20-minute episodes (40 in total) reduced to 22 pages... also too many errors and a confusing story. If you're going to make a story with worse pacing than the series, at least follow the show's storyline.

Whoever had the idea to combine two entire episodes into a 20 page comic was on something. And why did you remove V’s talk with N? It’s like you want to sabotage her character.

It is worse than Issue 1, same as before with the previous review summary. The transitioning to episode 3 did not work at all, questionable decision.