Oh, you beautiful, moronic arthropod.
Creative Staff:
Story: Max Bemis
Art: Eoin Marron
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Dale is on a hero’s journey, but it is not one for glory. It is for revenge. He has survived this long on his own, but now he has decided the only thing left for him to do is kill the giant monster that took everything away from him!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The idea of a Centipede comic was the kind of thing that at first thought you just roll your eyes at and ignore. The second, if you’ve been involved in the creation of things to any level, is that you can start to see different ways of actually making it work. Bemix and Marron have put together a decidedly odd but workable approach to this concept with the series so far and the opening issue worked far better than it should. It took a bit to find the rhythm of it but once you did it just all made such strangely weird perfect sense. With the second issue the team moves everything forward while also finding ways to humanize things and ramp up the fear as well.
With Dale continuing to narrate his story to the ghost radio in order to keep some semblance of sanity while dealing with the danger he faces we get to see more of how this world has been shaped. The encounter with the Centipede at the end of the previous issue is the initial focus here as we discover that as dangerous as it is, it’s also pretty dumb. Staggeringly dumb. When it hits its face against a light post it essentially stops it for a bit, allowing Dale to escape. But it’s also persistent and it doesn’t take long for it to start after him again. This actually ends up being somewhat fun and a potential game changer as Dale manages to jab a knife into its eye and gets dragged along for a while. It’s unclear if it’s been damaged in this way before but it gives Dale a win and some confidence to try and come up with some other ways to fight back – after a nap.
The humanizing side of this all is what I like as Dale takes us back to how people here fought the creature. With it just being itself and its spider babies we discover that the creature’s stupidity allowed for a lot of testing in ways to kill it or damage it but nothing worked. The main feature of the creature is that it’s simply relentless as it never stops. The various things tried are serious, such as getting it to a nuclear test site, while others are comical and referential, such as setting it up in a stadium where it was sniped at while moving through obstacles. They even tried a steel maze that didn’t quite go so well. But the real humanization is seeing more of Dale’s story from before the end times where he and his childhood friend Lucas were best buddies that had some really interesting moments of change over the years. With Lucas dead we know that this is a driver for Dale but it’s got a little more meat to it now.
In Summary:
This shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t. And I’ll even gamble for that a lot of comics readers in general that it won’t .But for me it works and does so in a surprisingly fun and engaging way. This series has the potential for some twists and turns along the way still to be sure but what we’re getting now is such a great mix of humor, horror, action, and weirdness that it’s just a delight. Bemis’ script can get a little clunky with the narration sometimes and i’m still not sold on Marron’s artwork in a big way but it all comes together really well for this title and the way it’s being executed, making for a very fun experience.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: August 9th,2017
Release Date: Dynamite Entertainment
MSRP: $3.99
