The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gail Simone
Art: J. Calafiore
Colors: Jason Wright
Letters: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
A bittersweet reunion takes place against a backdrop of unrelenting terror as the crusader turned remorseless killer known as Southern Belle makes the brutal death of Megalopolis’s last true heroes her personal mission. And something far worse than wicked this way comes, from the bowels of the earth itself!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
There’s a scene in the first Silent Hill movie that always intrigued me. Near the climax, the protagonist is separated from her adopted daughter, and she’s told that the girl is being held in what amounts to the ninth circle of Hell down in the basement of an abandoned hospital. The protagonist goes without hesitation even though it almost certainly means dying in the most horrible way imaginable.
I’ve often thought of that scene and what I would do in her situation. Would I have the courage to go to Hell? In my darker moments, I’m not so sure. It’s not the same as going to a bad place you’d rather avoid—this is Hell: the worst of the worst; the last and most terrible plane of existence in eternity.
Megalopolis might as well be Hell on Earth. Once the home of the world’s greatest superheroes, the place has become a nightmare world of insane and cruel superbeings delighting in pain, torture, and death.
And people are willingly returning to it.
A group of survivors is contracted by a mercenary group to act as guides to Megalopolis so they can rescue a wealthy businessman who happened to be in the wrong city on the wrong day. The group agrees, but only because they want to find the woman who saved them, whose sacrifice allowed them to escape back to the mainland: Mina. Her survival was a long shot, but they feel they owe it to her to try.
Mina did survive. She managed fine on her own, but her situation improved when she discovered that Crimson Shadow—one of the city’s heroes—was unaffected by whatever it was that drove the others insane, and that he was her old friend Cody. She grudgingly accepted his offer to pretend to be his sidekick, Oriole, and covertly save those they can from the supers. However, their plan goes awry when Southern Belle, the new leader of the supers, discovers their true identity.
All sorts of plans go awry. The rescue group found the businessman, Mr. Valiant, but it turns out he was the supervillain Valiant and he and the other supervillains had been hiding from the supers, biding their time until they could make their return. Their plan is to kill the supers in exchange for clemency for all crimes by the US Government, and they don’t need any rescuers getting in their way.
A lot of pieces are put into motion in this issue, all drawing together for what should be a brutal, heart-wrenching finale. Mina and Crimson Shadow show up at the vault just in time to save most of the would-be rescuers, but Southern Belle is hot on their heels. Meanwhile, Overlord—the most powerful of all the supers and the one who exhibited the only signs of remorse—frees himself from his crucifixion and is heading straight for the woman responsible for his torture: Southern Belle. All the while, deep underground the architect behind all this madness waits.
Obviously, this comic keeps quite a few balls in the air, and it’s a testament to this creative team that it never feels bloated, confusing, or pointless. Too often issues that cover transitional moments feel like they’re just spinning their wheels, moving pieces into place for the actual story to come. That never happens with this work. Every moment feels organic and engaging and does an excellent job of building the tension and momentum for the next issue’s climax.
Gail Simone is a master of tension and suspense. She follows Joe Bob Brigg’s first rule of Drive-In movie-making: anybody can die at any moment. There’s a real sense that no one is safe, and this issue proves it. I won’t give it away, but a character does die, and it’s senseless and pointless and horrible and very effective. Lord (and Gail Simone) only knows who will actually survive the coming bloodbath.
J. Calafiore does an excellent job of creating a blasted, twisted city for the equally blasted and twisted supers to play. Calafiore’s style falls on the more realistic side of the art spectrum, and that helps sell the horror in each issue. Despite the fantastic concepts driving the story, the horror, and the pain are grounded in all-too-real human bodies and human emotions, and Calafiore brings it all to bloody, terrifying life.
Which brings me back to my original pondering: would I go to Megalopolis willingly to save someone I loved? I’d like to think so, but this comic presents me with some pretty compelling evidence that says otherwise.
In Summary:
We’ve got one more issue in this series, and I have no idea what’s going to happen. The best stories zig when you think they’re going to zag, and they do it in such a natural, logical way that you wonder why you didn’t see it coming all along. Like I said, this is a story where anybody can die at any moment, and I’m on the proverbial edge of my seat, wondering how it will all end. Dr. Josh gives this an….
Grade: A
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 29th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
