Tearable paper dolls.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gail Simone
Art: J. Calafiore
Colors: Jason Wright
Letters: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
On the day all the superheroes turned bad, a horrifying creature emerged from a giant hole in the middle of the city. No one has dared look too deeply into that abyss. Until now. What horrors lie at the other end, and what is yet to come through? Our band of ordinary citizens find themselves with answers too terrifying to comprehend as the sequel to the Kickstarter megahit Leaving Megalopolis continues!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the big questions regarding Megalopolis was the status of the city’s villains. The heroes were driven insane by an encounter with some eldritch horror, and now they terrorize the city they once lived to protect. The villains, it turns out, went into hiding in probably the only secure place in the city: the prison specifically designed to hold them. Their leader is a billionaire named Simon Valiant, and he’s the extraction target of an illegal rescue team.
Events are building to a head as we enter the home stretch for this series. The rescue team finally meets its target, Mina and Crimson Shadow do their best to save the people they can, and the Cohens reach the bottom of the hole that started Megalopolis’ decline. However, for every step forward, the characters take two steps back: Valiant and his super villains don’t seem to want to cooperate with the rescue squad, Mina and Crimson Shadow save a man but in doing so reveal their true natures to Southern Belle, and nothing good can come from the Cohen’s discovery down in the hole. The moral seems to be that no good deed goes unpunished. At least in the second act.
This is such a good comic that it’s difficult to know where to begin when analyzing it. The atmosphere is excellent, and there’s a real sense that anybody can die at any moment—creating a gripping sense of dramatic tension missing from most serial fiction. Calafiore’s art and Wright’s colors add to the tension, as the two present us with some truly horrifying scenes and characters, as well as a dark, dilapidated city ready to implode under the weight of insanity and cruelty. Together, this creative team a new and compelling cross between superhero and horror comics that is truly disturbing at times.
Moreover, this is a comic about something. The story stands as something more than the sum of its acts. I didn’t necessarily pick up on it in the first collection, but it’s clear that this is an investigation of the concept of heroism. True heroism, it says, comes from the most unlikely places: whether it’s a scared man with no combat training or experience doing his best to save his friends, or it’s an army of supervillains declaring that they are going to rescue “everyone.”
In Summary:
I have no idea where this story is going, and I love it. Leaving Megalopolis: Surviving Megalopolis may have a long, unwieldy name, but the story is tight. Dark, horrifying, and hopeful, this is a comic that plays with genre and uses it to make a statement on heroism. Dr. Josh gives this an….
Grade: A+
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: April 20th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
