Paul is drawn to the batshit insane it seems.
Creative Staff:
Story: Ben Fisher
Art: Adam Markiewicz
Colors: Adam Guzowski
Letterer: Adam Markiewicz
What They Say:
This is it! The mysterious origin of the Divide is revealed! But learning the truth may cost Paul and Maria their lives. Discovering the Divide’s secrets is just the beginning in a story that will “find its place in the annals of horror for years to come” (Fangoria).
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we get closer to the end of the series, The Great Divide has to provide answers. Fisher and Markiewicz have provided for a very fun book so far with some creative (and sometimes familiar) elements that help it to stand out well. It’s a book that from the beginning felt like with the right kind of structure and push could be the next Walking Dead with what it wants to do and likely still can even with it finishing up in the next issue. What we get this time around is bringing answers to the forefront though they themselves feel a little superficial and, frankly, weird. But it fits in with the nature of how this particular world works and there’s that sense of a cosmic joke about it all that’s rather appropriate.
The discovery of the group that exists at Crater Lake was certainly intriguing, especially the way the Reverend presents herself, but that we get a group of people that can seemingly touch each other without taking on riders and killing the other? Well, it made for a lot of fun as Paul was getting touched the last time around but it is as the Reverend says, something that has to be seen and felt to be understood. The group is mixed on what to do here, since Maria still wants to head to Seattle for what we discover are really personal and heartbreaking reasons related to Alita, but there’s a curiosity as well as the Reverend claims she knows the truth of why this all happened. It’s little surprise she’s really embraced a religious side here after what’s been experienced but you do feel for Paul as he wonders why there aren’t at least a few more sane people out there that can handle their shit amid the end of the world as we know it.
When we do get the tale, the Reverend naturally drapes it all up in some big theological aspects with a Soul Box that fell from the sky. What we learn later is… just as confusing in a way as Jon reveals it to be a satellite that was designed to absorb information from people and remove their memories that was intended as a short range kind of weapon to destabilize areas. It went horribly wrong as we know but it serves as a kind of weird way to explain the walkabouts and how people have been rewritten. Sometimes it’s best to not reveal the origin of things and I’m admittedly leaning that way here, but partially because I really wanted another run of this book to explore how the remains of society exists and adapts to such a surreal upheaval. The ideas used here are interesting ones but ones that I think needed a lot more thinking about and fleshing out before introducing.
In Summary:
The Great Divide works through its big reveal and has a lot of chaotic things happening once the truth comes out. I liked how Markiewicz presented the more religious side of it as it fits in with the Reverend well and adds its own curiosities to it all. The dynamic between the core group continues to be solid and I really liked the small downtime we got with Paul and Maria that delved into her reasons for wanting to go on even though there seems to be some safety here, a safety they don’t quite understand at first. The concepts behind why all of this happened feel kind of weird and I’m not sure how to feel about it yet as it’s something that I suspect may flow a bit better once it’s read as a full series run. But I also kind of wish it was punted down the road a bit to possibly be explored later as this is not a world I want to leave just yet.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 8th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
