The end of the beginning.
Creative Staff:
Story: Alex Cox, Brian Wood
Art: Hayden Sherman
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Thomas Napolitano
What They Say:
WORLD WAR MARS! The battle for the fate of Mars kicks off, and from the depths of the planetary core comes a fighting force that has not been seen for a millennium.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The path of this series from the start has been interesting and it ends leaving me hopeful that there will be more exploration of it. Alex Cox and Brian Wood delivered the goods on a familiar story while giving it the kind of scale it needed and the craziness as well to fit into the old school mentality. What won me over to it even more, however, is Hayden Sherman. The man simply delivers the goods issue after issue with the look and feel of it but this one with the sprawling war and chaos that ensues simply takes it to a whole other level. The detail, the layouts, the movement of it all is just spectacular and really made it a far more engaging work because of it.
The finale plays out much like you’d expect in that there is a lot of chaos as it goes on with John and Den leading the fight to Thavas in order to save Barsoom and all of its people. It’s not a fight that’s done in hours or days but rather months and it helps to secure the father and son relationship a good bit, though that plays out more by inference. The fight is one that goes to a grand level with the size of forces at play and what Thavas throws at them but it comes down to that moment where it’s best to show your numbers rather than to fight, to make clear there is no way out of this situation. Thavas has his own trick up his sleeve to throw everyone off but he still achieves his larger goal of destruction and doesn’t give the true victors the satisfaction of dealing with him, which is frustrating.
The character side in general offers up a good bit as well. Dejah’s dismay at everything is heartbreaking and it’s easy to understand her giving into death upon the loss of her son, not knowing it was a clone. Telling this through John’s perspective may be a bit off in a way with how he saves her but the two have such a complicated relationship that it works, especially since what he did in the past is what caused so much of this. The book also gives us some really great material when it comes to Tars Tarkas as he has finally made it to a stage of evolution not seen in forever that allows him to largely wipe the slate clean. I really wish we had more on this but the visual of it all as he deals the death blow to this incarnation of Helium allows it to work, as does the nod he gets for raising Den all these years in John’s place.
In Summary:
John Carter: The End is a miniseries that I hope portends more to come as it was just fantastic. The scale of it worked wonderfully once it got underway and the way the characters had become so weary after so long just added a kind of weight to it that it needed. Cox and Wood nailed the characters and larger plot points in the sweeping operatic scale that it needed and they lucked out in a huge way with Hayden Sherman illustrating it. I cannot overstate just how much his designs gave this a life that it needed to really be as strong as it is, defining it in a way that could not be done through the usual artists we often saw on the various Warlord of Mars books. This series is one that’s incredibly special and makes me wish it could have found its way to the big screen with what it does as I can just visualize it so easily.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: June 14th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
