Tragedy leads to the most difficult of journeys.
Creative Staff:
Story: Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson
Art: Kyle Charles
Letterer: Ryan Ferrier
What They Say:
A tale of loss told in five parts. Any good mom would march through the inferno of HELL to get her family back.
Unable to cope with the burden of grief, a middle-aged mom descends the nine circles of hell to retrieve her forsaken family. Guided by the ghosts of William Blake and Agatha Christie, this no-nonsense mother journeys deep into a bizarre underworld filled with celebrity sinners, surreal landscapes, and absurd tasks. HER INFERNAL DESCENT is a retelling of Dante’s Inferno that updates the themes for a modern audience.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Dante’s Inferno has been covered many times in many forms across many mediums over the years and it’s always intriguing to watch. Every creative that works on it brings something new to it as they explore tragedy and its ramifications (and hopes) and there’s usually some infusion of their own stories within it as well. Written by Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson, this new five-issue miniseries gets underway in solid if somewhat slow form for some but it adheres to familiar elements of it all. In a way, it feels more literary than some other adaptations over the years but those opening pages of it are just strong. And particularly because it’s dealing with a woman that the summary says is middle-aged but feels much older. Kyle Charles delivers a great looking work here that has a sense of the strange, familiar, and bizarre in the mix that makes for some great repeat readings in order to soak up all the details.
With the loss of her husband and children, a woman is going through the hardship of packing up a house that she’s leaving. The narration of it is haunting as she describes how the weight of all of what’s happened has her feeling like she’s sinking into the floorboards, that there’s so much of the past to be done with, and that the weight of the world is just crushing her further with her loss. It’s haunting and beautiful in its tragedy through both the words and the striking artwork and design. But into her world, or her attic as the case may be, enters a ghost in the form of William Blake that offers her a chance to save her family. With a possible contract of sorts with Lucifer, she simply needs to follow him to the inferno below with him as a guide to help find the right path to finding them. Her acceptance of all of this illustrates just how disconnected she’s become, almost in a weary offhanded way of acceptance that this, too, is just fine to do.
Her journey is a slow descent – into madness, perhaps? – as she moves from the real world to the underworld, which includes a little beguiling in order to cross the river with Charon. The dialogue for this is engaging, particularly with Blake’s articulations, as she’s still kind of just entertaining all of this in an empty way. But it’s as we get deeper into the layers and come across those who have passed before, such as Poe and Aristotle, that we see the kinds of personal hells that people have put themselves in for all sorts of reasons. She has little reason to engage with much of this – and it is curious that almost all that she deals with are men at this early stage – before getting caught up in events that will take her to darker and more dangerous events. It’s a slow move to get there but it’s never a slog, particularly if you enjoy sharp dialogue and lots of little pieces of nuance in who she has to deal with.
In Summary:
Her Infernal Descent is the kind of work that’s going to excite a segment of comics readers that will hope others will try it to get into something different. There’s the familiarity of Dante’s Inferno as its basis that will help but I’m really enjoying the characters involved so far and just how much we know of our lead in a few pages at the start while avoiding going into the specifics. Kyle Charles delivers a great looking book with some great layouts, especially with Charon and her entry into the underworld, but also just in what we get with our lead character. The entire presentation of her is really great and has me wanting to follow the journey because of her and what she brings to the story with so much yet to be revealed. I’m definitely excited to see this grow and how it works as a whole.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: April 18th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
