Everything draws to a close even as more darkness looms.
Creative Staff:
Story: Adam Glass
Art: Pat Olliffe
Colors: Gabe Eltaeb
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
What They Say:
In their final mission together, the Rough Riders are pushed to the brink of their own destruction. Houdini tries to outsmart death one more time while Jack Johnson attempts to save his dear friend. Meanwhile, Teddy Roosevelt must face not only his own sins, but those of his familial line. And in order to save the world from the end of days, Roosevelt must kill his daughter, Alice, who has been possessed by an ancient evil! Don’t miss “The Long Goodbye”, the stunning conclusion of America’s first team of super heroes.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Rough Riders series, at least under Teddy Roosevelt, looks like it draws to a close here with the third miniseries coming from writer Adam Glass.This series certainly has a lot of fun things going for it and the conclusion goes as big as you’d expect, though since it feels like it’s wrapping things up (with a for now nod) it plays more heavily to the epilogue side in order to bring closure to several stories. And artist Pat Olliffe is certainly up to the challenge as always as there’s a lot of really fun character moments here and the layouts work great for carrying the action across the pages. Combined with what Gabe Eltaeb brings to that realm this is another solidly strong book in the visual department that was simply a treat to have with it dealing with this time period.
With the revelation made that Hondt was actually after Roosevelt’s family, the quick push back to Washington, D.C. to deal with the threat means there’s a lot going on here. Roosevelt is in that mindset that this is a family issue so he’s slowly separating from the Rough Riders so that he can deal with it personally, which is amusing because he does need them. He also gets help he didn’t realize he could use when his daughter Alice reveals that she’s long paid attention to him and what he does, discovering his secrets and donning his armored suit in order to take on Hondt’s undead. It’s a good sequence – even if I dislike the glasses on her – that results in her setting the stage for what’s to come in the final pages. That material in the early 1930’s with Annie Oakley is what has me hopeful that we do have a new project in our future.
The actual final encounter with Hondt plays out in a pretty standard way, though I did like that he took over Alice for it to raise the emotional stakes to unbalance Roosevelt. It’s a decent fight with some solid closure that involves the more mystical members of the group in the right way. But it was more the epilogue that won me over here as Roosevelt, deciding that they’ve all sacrificed enough, finishes out the Rough Riders and does one on one stuff with a lot of them. Everyone gets that extra nod about their futures, some of which are pretty sad when you get down to it, but it’s Edison that gets most of attention with Roosevelt taking things further with him and his creations in recent memory. That’s definitely an interesting approach to working him but it fits nicely with seeing things about Jack, Houdini, and Lovecraft and their paths.
In Summary:
While I don’t think there are any great surprises here in the end, Rough Riders: Ride or Die plays out in a really fun and enjoyable way. Adam Glass wraps up most of the character arcs here from the three series and sets them on their “historical” paths that we mostly know but he also sets us up for another iteration of the Rough Riders that i do hope we get to see sometime. But if not, just the idea of it delights. Glass definitely got to work with the right artist on this project as Olliffe delivered page after page in creating the time period and playing within the weirdness of it all, all while connecting these very different characters together in a very fun way. I enjoyed this run a lot and hope that it gets some decent shelf life through AfterShock in the next few years with some new editions and high-quality releases.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: May 9th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
