A growing darkness.
Creative Staff:
Story: Joe Pruett
Art: Szymon Kudranski
Colors: Guy Major
Letterer: Marshall Dillon
What They Say:
Still reeling from last issue’s traumatic ending, our surviving heroes decide it’s time to stand and fight. But are they prepared for the full fury of the Black-Eyed Children?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Sometimes you come into a book at the wrong time and place and you get that sense of missed potential. I had seen the first issue when it came out and was intrigued and then I got the previous issue for review, which made for some fun in trying to figure out the sweeping storyline and connecting with what was a very strong installment for readers, but not a jumping on point. Three months later we get this issue from Pruett and Kudranski and it reveals itself as the end of the first season and with Pruett talking in the back about how the singles aren’t cutting it in sales and that there won’t be a season two for the foreseeable future. It’s always hard getting the band back together and it looks like Aftershock did a lot to promote and give the book its chance to stand out in a very full sea of other series, so there’s a sense of unfortunate about what we have here on top of an already bleak storyline.
This issue largely focuses on a time before in Kentucky when Gus had gone back with his family there to try and do what he can to reconnect with them. The place has a very Jonestown cult kind of feeling about it and seeing how he’s doing his best to protect his daughters amid it all is well-handled, particularly since his wife is a true believer and sees her daughter as the one that will help change the world. Marriage is difficult enough at times without that and seeing how Gus is trying to navigate it while bonding with his daughter again after being away shows a man doing the best he can and wanting to be what’s needed. But it’s also a place where you know there can’t be a return to what it was because his wife is simply so far gone that what her child represents as potential means more than anything else to her.
When things go down as they must, which results in a brutally quick death along the way, the horror as it unfolds is just fantastic. Gus’ attempt at trying to save who he can works well and while Pruett frames it all just right with the dialogue, Kudranski’s artwork and Major’s heavy use of shades of black is what really drives the tension. It’s the kind of slowly enveloping darkness that comes and seeing it unfold as it does and with Gus doing what he can to fight back against it hits a sweet spot. So when things do circle back to the present toward the end and we get a reconnect with some of these characters it adds the right kind of weight to what they’ve seen and survived and really does leave you wanting more.
In Summary:
While not the ending some may hope for, particularly since most reading it wouldn’t want it to end at all, what we get here is an intriguing almost epilogue-like piece that sets up what can go next in this fairly open-ended series. I really dug pieces of the previous issue even without reading the bulk of what came before and it has me pretty intrigued with what Pruett might have done with it and the places Kudranski and Major could go in ratcheting up the tension and terror. Hopefully, the series in trade form continues to find an audience (and maybe even a nice deluxe season one hardcover?) that it can find a second shot at life down the line from this team. It definitely deserves attention just for being able to run as long as it has as a launch title from AfterShock and the faith put into it when we see publishers cancel a lot of books within the first few issues of sales.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: December 27th, 2017
MSRP: $1.99
