That one perfect realization.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Jenkins
Art: Wesley St. Claire
Letterer: Marshall Dillon
What They Say:
With his one-eyed, genetically enhanced Welsh Corgi in tow, Jake finally confronts the secretive underground resistance known as the Beyonders. And as the global conspiracy to end all conspiracies begins to unfold, Jake finds himself unraveling a mystery thousands of years in the making, with a long-hidden prize waiting to be found.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of this series was a real challenge because of what it wanted to be. Giving us our first look at Jake and the kind of strange life he had was a surreal experience but one whose only intent was to be shattered. Paul Jenkins had to give us that weirdness in order to take us to the next level of weirdness with Jake’s true ability coming into the spotlight. That made for some really fun material for Wes St. Claire to illustrate and he did a great job with it, and continue to do so with this installment. But I again have to give huge props to Marshall Dillon as there’s so much dialogue and exposition to work through here that placement and flow between him and St. Claire is impressive as hell.
Jake’s introduction to the reality of events is, again, very exposition heavy as Narine breaks it all down for him. While we see a bit of The Order working to get Jake back, the truth is that the Beyonders have orchestrated events for him to be raised by them in the open until they could really use him as part of the bigger picture. That bigger picture is still something of a mystery but it’s amusing to see Jake grapple with the truth of his aunt and uncle and the genetically modified corgi that’s full of flatulence in a big way. Though he’s gifted in his ability to code break he’s struggling to connect with the scale of the reality that he now inhabits, which means asking awkward and meaningless questions of Narine as she takes him to Avebury in England where he’s going to work with another Beyonder named John Ellis.
The scope of the Beyonders is intriguing as it’s all about an ancient of mystery that goes back millennia that they’re now able to try and exploit because they found the frozen remains of George Mallory and his invaluable notebook. This isn’t a spoiler in a lot of ways but the notebook has critical information for figuring out the key to an ancient series of texts across various languages going back millennia. Jake’s in this position to try and figure it out and watching him work through it amid these conditions, and with people who have spent years trying to do so, in the space of a night is standard fare. But it is exhilarating in a way that’s hard to pin down, like reading a lengthy book and getting to that aha moment where everything clicks, as he reveals the truth behind the ancient text – which is only going to lead them to more unknowns.
In Summary:
The opening issue of Beyonders was close to a point where I wasn’t sure that I was going to come back for another. It didn’t click well for me in terms of story but I really dug St. Claire’s artwork and just the general weirdness of it all. Here, Paul Jenkins smartly provides a heap of connecting and engaging aspects to draw us in with a lot of answers – just not to the questions that the series really wants to pose yet. It’s another introductory piece to the larger world but this one feels like even with the scale of it that it’s something you can wrap your head around even more. I’m really intrigued now to see what’s going to come next and if Jenkins is going to deliver something batshit crazy by the end.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: September 26th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
