The skeletons in the closet come home to roost for the Khoury’s.
Creative Staff:
Writer: Eliot Rahal
Art: Jorge Fornes
Letters: Taylor Esposito
What they say:
A midwestern noir series set in the harsh landscape of the northern Minnesota Iron Range, HOT LUNCH SPECIAL is all about family, food and the fight for survival. Only one question is worth asking…is blood thicker than sandwiches?
There are no secrets now. Only bodies. It’s dinner time, and Dorothy and Jordan are competing to sit at the head of the table, both forcing their family members to make hard decisions. Do the Khourys go to the cops? Or do they go to war?
Some choices have already been made–the Irish crime lord, Big Jim Moran, is getting anxious. He’s left too many loose ends, and he’s forced to cut the strings. The order has been given. It’s time for everyone to die.
From Eliot Rahal, the writer of Cult Classic, The Paybacks, and Quantum & Woody comes HOT LUNCH SPECIAL, with art by Jorge Fornes (Amazing X-Men, Wolverine, Magnus)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Growth. That’s what life is about. You make some mistakes, you say some things you shouldn’t, and hopefully one day down the road you look back and say, “I’ve grown so much since then!” That’s how I feel about Hot Lunch Special. When I read and took notes on the first issue, my initial assignment here(!), I wasn’t getting it. In the issues that have followed Rahal and Fornes have created a decent story with something at its core that means more to me than comics, family.
Big Jim Moran’s attachment to the Khoury clan reaches back to one of the darkest times in the small children’s lives. Flash forward to today and the fallout from Moran’s latest move to tighten his hold on the family, which resulted in the death of teenage Ben Khoury, is to wipe out the entire clan. Dorothy is devastated after of hearing of her father’s role and quickly learns of her family’s knowledge of the deal with Big Jim. In the offing, we learn that the Khoury family has kept a detailed series of documents in hopes of bringing the Moran family to justice, but Dorothy disapproves. As the family sits down to discuss their options and we find that Moran’s two hitmen have been caught by Detective Olson, who has been on their tail for several days.
In Summary:
The effects of Ben’s death are priming Dorothy to seek a different kind of justice for Big Jim Moran and crew. Her refusal to accept the Khoury’s bounty of decades of illegal activities as a means to get revenge lets me know that Rahal and Fornes are driving this train towards a bloody conclusion, and I’m all in! It’s striking how muted and light the color scheme is for this issue. A few black and white pages slip in seamlessly with full-color pages which play heavily on the Minnesota landscape.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Aftershock Comics
Release Date: October 10th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
