I voted, but didn't comment. SHAMEFUR DISPRAY.

ENERGY- I echo the congrats on finishing a comic, but that seems a sort of Pyrrhic victory considering there's plenty to work on and do in this comic. You got some great feedback in the comments below regarding how to get started, so I'll not echo them apart from encouraging you to keep on trucking

TDK- Great angles, interesting panels, but I wish you'd really make love to your inks. If you're gonna just go black and white, I'd love to see you punch up some shadows, thicken your lines and really make your scenes pop. I see some bits where you appear to be getting there, but I almost feel like you're afraid of being too heavy handed. By all means do so. Do not fear the ink! Embrace it Like most notably that scene on page 4 in that gritty bar? I would've loved to have seen some heavy shadows on Elle's tacitcal outfit, or an angled shadow coming off of the background memories to pull the main character away from the events she's reflecting on. Really all your fabulous background scenes (great bazaar shot on page 5 by the way!) would've befitted from more blacks. I do like that you son't shy away from these scenes, its obvious you took the time out to add that extra TLC on the crowd scenes. (Loving that Mr. Creamy & Mimi cameo by the way!) and your generous use of using other void fighters to enrich and populate your story beyond just using your opponent.
Also Elle in a gala evening dress.? BOOTYFUL. The plot is certainly thicker on your side of the battle. Color me intrigued!

energy: good job finishing a comic and getting it in, try to keep this level of dedication and you may see some improvement in your future battles!

TDK: Upheaval reaching its boiling point! This is one of your best stories. Sometimes your narratives are so thick (lots of plot point movement with few breaks or character moments) that they don't stick after reading. There's alot more character and heart in this story and your comic is better for it. Not only is your storytelling improved but your art is as well, I can see you're straying from your usual angular look too for more organic shapes with your characters. It's looking good and I'd say keep working on that. You've always had pretty good vision when it comes to action choreography and it's shining especially well here. I do wanna see you push yourself more with shades and blacks to really fill up your pages.

Keep it up, guys!

Energy: Cat piss aside, I'm super proud of you right now! I can tell that I'm missing a few crucial details to understand the organization Jessie is joining and how Elle fits into the equation, but I can tell you're putting effort into your character designs and interactions. Your inking and shading, while pretty rough throughout, made a huge difference in the readability of your comic, so please keep that up. You also seem to be getting better at designing your characters' facial features so they're easier to tell apart. So keep inking, keep working on becoming more comfortable drawing humans in all different angles and shapes, and keep paying attention to your backgrounds! You're improving, and I think you will continue to improve as long as you don't let yourself give up or half-ass it!

TDK: Talk about cameo city! I love how you've populated your world with a combination of existing characters and your own history and culture. I haven't felt like VOID was populated this much since maybe one of Gabe's Murderfest matches or Dan's Final Hour comics. I'm impressed at how fully you've given me that impression with such minimal rendering on some of your environments and elements. I would have been nice to see those more fully rendered, but I can't ignore how awesome it is that you were still able to communicate your intent so clearly despite whatever constraints prevented you from drawing a fully fleshed-out city environment. But what really grabbed me was your story. I felt Jessie's sense of confusion and betrayal, and really really wanted to know what Elle was up to the whole time. I was a bit confused about how well they actually knew each other, since they had worked together in the past and Elle seemed to ignore her for most of the comic, but then randomly decided to talk to her at the gala? Also, after watching Cinema Sins all the time for the past week, I couldn't help but think that they should have sniped Jessie instead of her informant, since the informant was already pretty beat up and would have been an easy target if they needed to take both of them out. But maybe they just didn't actually want to kill Jessie, so whatevs hahah.

Either way, I really enjoyed your comic TDK. It was pretty sketchy and looked rather unfinished, but the story and the environments made up for it. Just keep up all the good stuff, and work on drawing more completed-looking comics in the future as much as you can!

Energy: Great job on remaining consistent and turning in. I was somewhat worried since your last default and string of sketchy work, so I hope this is the start of you pushing yourself towards more finished and completed works.

I think you need to take some time to think about your consistency regarding spatial proportions. You've drawn the objects that should be in place, but you keep on switching the size of them and when you do that, it makes your drawings lose grip on them. Example being Page 1, you show the desk at Jessie Valley's waist in height. Page 2, you raise it a little to her chest and then Page 3, it's suddenly up to her chin. You also do this with faces and expressions, too.  But, I can tell you're getting better at tightening it, too. I think you should take the time to do some basic studies to help your consistency. Once you figure this out, your stuff is going to start improving by a long shot.

Your story was alright, I hope that you'll take this somewhere and have it develop into something, but I have to second Dino Nebitt in that you take the time to make Jessie not so naive and start becoming more competent in her field. You should give her more confidence and have her push stuff.

Overall, you've done a good job and I hope this is the start of you no more sketchy and no more defaults. Good work!

tdkgunghoul: Great comic. Really, just a great comic. Probably the best effort I can think from you in recent memory. Terrific storytelling, terrific art, just terrific. I really loved reading this, I thought you did great.

I loved your story, I thought your efforts was incredible at telling this story and it's honestly one of my favorite from you. I thought you did great in building up the world and taking us around the locations. You made absolutely the best decision by focusing on Jessie Valley for this, she makes a much better protagonist for this story than Elle could ever hope to be. I thought your interactions were good and you have a stupendous collection of cameos and character presence. Everything makes sense and feels very natural with the story telling. You could have expanded this story out over the course of multiple comics and the path and order done still would feel exactly right. You've perfectly paced it.

But, it's kind of strange to me that you show Elle using a heavy metal pipe to bash Jessie Valley's skull in, but she gets up fine, not even dazed, but the minute Elle gets a whamming kick, she has multiple broken ribs. I dunno, it just seems like you're playing with anime physics where the only thing that can break bones and bodies are people punching each other. But you're not doing that, you're doing a spy thriller and to maintain the tone of a spy thriller, you should adhere to real world physics where getting smashed in the head by someone who really means it won't cause them to just take a knee but will cause some bleeding in the back of the head, if not a concussion, if not outright caving in their skull and killing them. That action with a pipe should be how that fight is settled, not started.  

You have a lot of open line art, and while you've never been known exactly for coloring your comics in any major capacity, I kind of wish you had pushed towards some solid blacks or greys here, because your lines feel empty without any kind of filled spaces. I know you play traditional, so I guess you need to get some more sharpies or whatever to work with. If you're interested, I'll recommend some tools for you to look into.

Your anatomy is looking better, you're constantly improving both your bodies and the poses used. It's getting more and more natural. You've been doing stronger poses and it looks great, but I think overall, you need to devote more time towards feeling out your faces. Your bodies are improving, but your faces feel like they need to get more momentum on improving. It's kind of unacceptable that all of your characters have the same stock nose when you should be pushing past that into working on differentiating the people you draw more. Jessie Valley and Elle shouldn't have the same head and face shape with 'hair shape' and 'scar' being the features that make them different. You should delve deeper into improving that part, because I know you're capable of it if you make the effort. You're leaps ahead from when you started and it's time for you to go farther.

Still, you did an amazing job on this and you should be pleased with yourself. Terrific work!

I'm still laughing my ass off about Johnny stuffing her face. Excellent humor.

I'll keep this short since I feel like the other crits really hit everything well.

Energy- Hey!! This is looking better! Good job

TDK- I spy a Meredith! But seriously though it's nice to see so many cameos because it makes the Void world seem big and it's sooo much better than seeing random backgrounders. Also, I feel like this comic could have been improved with a simple tone over it ( I see others have mentioned adding more black and that would work also).

I ditto what Dino said about Energy's portrayal of his character. Though i do not know the history of your work it does come across that way in this comic.
TDK great work def very epic with the wide shots and the big scenery. I agree it couldve been pushed a little bit harder, you absolutely need blacks if your not gonna have color or grayscale. its the least you could do lol

Wu hit all the points, I think.

I definitely agree that you're at a point, TDK, where you can start trying to push your art further technically.  You've got all these fantastic shot choices, your comics are really cinematic, and that goes a long long way.  But now the line quality and lack of texture and shadow is starting to hold you back.  You've got visual storytelling chops for days, now get your draftsmanship on their level.

Also, I've noticed a trend in Jessie Valley comics.  Why is it that Energy seems to regard his own character as this inept child who everyone tells to sit at the kiddie table while the adults take care of business?  Energy, are you trying to make Jessie a laughing stock?  Don't you want her to be cool?  Why do you insist on depicting her as being utterly useless and ineffectual at all times?  How many times do we have to sit here and watch Jessie Valley get shat on by a guy with a ponytail?  I want to see her grab that douchenozzle by his terrible life decision and wrench his arm behind his back!  Have some self esteem, Jess!

On the flip side, I think I'd have to regard TDK's side of this battle as possibly the best utilization of Jessie Valley to date.  She's skilled, tenacious, and resourceful, but JUST naive enough to still be the Jessie Valley we know and love.  She's essentially what Energy's version of Jessie would be if he didn't do everything in his power to make her lame.  Two useless karate chops to the back of the neck in a row (in the middle of a conversation, no less), and Elle doesn't even notice??  All drawing ability aside, Energy, you can do better than THAT.

Whoooooooooo Awesome!

Energy
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Your comics are slowly getting better! The plot is fairly easy to follow, too. Now to nitty gritty.

You should take into account actual heights of things in proportion to other things. These include people, other people and furniture, for example. In page 2, the table is at least 4 feet tall! Try to keep everyone in same place consistently, unless they visibly move. See Elle from pages 2 to 3, where she cleary is just standing there, and still moves to another location and angle (and the table is now 5 feet high).
In page 4, I think the panel order is wrong somehow? I'd imagine panel 2 to be last.

In page 5 you break the 180 rule.

TLDR: Proportions and scene consistency!

TDK
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Oh man. 20 solid pages in 4 weeks? Amazing. Congratulations!
You could've started with an establishing shot, it took me few panels to adjust myself where all of the briefing was done.
In page 4, another establishing shot is missing and confused me for ever so momentarily.

Oh man. Backgrounds, those glorious backgrounds! Good work! Simplifying the crowd really worked for your favour in this case, but did seem a little lazy in some cases (like the establishing shot).

Your action scenes' choreography just keeps getting more and more better and complex PLUS they are easy to follow! Often I get confused in fast-paced and panel-packed action scenes, but that's not the case here. You don't break 180 rule once, which is commendable.

In page 12, I didn't notice the narration boxes until second readthrough. You should encapsulate them into a box and in a position your eyes draw first - i.e. the left side and close to top

In page 13 you could've joined panels 1 and 2 to avoid the awkward 180 flip (angle, which remains consistent for the rest of the scene).

I won't touch page 15. I'm sure kura and shen have something to say about it.

Nice work with lampshading the bomb at page 18.

The blast proof glass Xia is behind reminds me of Kingsman.

Regarding your inking, I'd say you should work with line variation and going absolutely ape shit with blacks to find the perfect amount.

TL:DR: Establishing shots, good backgrounds, inking ready to get to next level and lovely references to stuff

There is ALWAYS another chance! Give it your best on this one, and then give it your best on the next!

I really wanted to pick up this challenge, but i wasn't getting a solid story idea.  I've got a few fun concepts percolating, though, so I look forward to battling Elle soon.

Good luck, you guys!