More of the pieces are revealed as the sense of danger and urgency grows.
What They Say:
As an eclipse covers New York City in midday darkness, Dr. Ephraim Goodweather and his team from the Centers for Disease Control struggle to find an explanation for what happened to Flight 753. But when the symptoms don’t add up to chemical warfare, and bizarre circumstances unexplained by modern medicine arise, Ephraim begins to entertain the ramblings of a Holocaust survivor who knows too much about this unknown threat.
The Review:
After a solid first issue that opened up the basic ideas of what’s going on in the series, the second issue has definitely started ramping up a sense of intensity about it, though it’s a certain kind of quiet intensity. With the plane having somehow landed and the rows and rows of bodies hauled out, the CDC team lead by Eph finds themselves with a strange mystery that they haven’t quite grasped yet. And that becomes one of the central ideas of the issue in that as they do start to get more information, they realize just how little they have and how unlike anything else this is. With so many incidents every year and so many things on file, even when it’s unusual it’s still routine. But as they dig into this case at JFK, the weird really seems to be kicking in and they find out more and more that they’re treating the whole thing wrong.
What’s surprising about the incident is the way that there are three survivors yet all the others aren’t exactly dead. It’s noted several times, and was evident in the last issue as well, but there’s a distinct difference in how the bodies are acting. They’re warm, they’re idle and lifeless and there’s a distinct lack of blood about them. In fact, when one of the first autopsies is done, they reveal that it’s like they’ve all been embalmed. It’a a disturbing revelation and one that certainly sets everyone on edge and reinforces the idea that they need to deal with it differently. Eph handles it well, though the lack of quickness in locking down things to a tighter quarantine is difficult to deal with as you’d imagine that in any real situation, certain things being off like they are here would have the whole thing tightened down quicker and more securely.
The issue does spread beyond the immediate aspects of the plane itself, as we see the three survivors and how off they are. They’re all very different people and commonalities aren’t apparent readily. And as odd as they are, there’s the obvious types as well, especially in the rock star with goth tendencies that has the group questioning the casket they found with the near black rich soil, which in turn has gone missing as well. There’s some other introductions along the way as well that highlights that the events hare are being planned on some level, with a man in his seventies who has lived far longer than anyone suspected he would, and another guy brought in to drive a van to a location with no questions asked that’s tied to events at the airport. The issue does a solid job of ramping up what’s going on here and making it bigger than just something going on at the airport and it also starts to carry through on just how dark it can get as we get some of the more violent aspects, or at least their results, on display.
In Summary:
The Strain is that kind of slow boil series that takes some time to really reveal itself, but similar to the first issue it’s doing so at a good pace and bringing in new and diverse elements here that work well. The lead is still Eph at this point as they try to figure out what’s going on, but we get to see other events unfolding as well which will likely tie back to the core as well. The writing continues to be good with smooth dialogue and generally good pacing without problematic jumps about while the artwork hits all the right notes, easily viewable as storyboards for a movie but with plenty of style and good colors to be all its own work. There’s a lot to like here but it’s hard not to view it in a theatrical sense. That’s not really a bad thing though as it flows well and makes for a very good read, leaving you wanting more and to see just where it is that it wants to go.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
