Getting closer to the truth.
Creative Staff:
Story: Garth Ennis
Art: Goran Sudzuka
Colors: Ive Svorcina
Letterer: Rob Steen
What They Say:
As Shaw and McGregor face their nemesis at last, Driscoll struggles to answer Goss’s cries for help–only to find herself mired deeper than the agents under her command. But with things at their darkest, answers come from an unexpected source.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
A Walk Through Hell is intending to be unsettling and it is working to some degree with it. Garth Ennis can do this well but with a book like this, it’s taken the long turn to get there that only seven issues in do I think it’s actually getting interesting. There’s been solid material earlier in the run in exploring some of the basics and going into the horror side of it, but it’s here that it feels like it’s willing to tell us things. And that gives Goran Sudzuka a bit more to work with, though we’re still largely playing in the same settings and scenarios. But at least there are some interesting scenes such as the stakeout flashback and the weirdness of whatever you want to consider being the present period.
The subplot side of things moves along in increments here as we see Driscoll further making progress toward Goss. There’s some good flashback material showing things she’s struggled with as a boss in setting up agent pairings and how she might have made some mistakes and enemies along the way, making it clear there’s a normal person here that has had a career many have had. It’s a welcome balance to the texts she gets from Goss as she further explores the warehouse, especially as Goss begins to give up on being helped. Which is good since he’s been dead in some form it seems as Driscoll is walking into a large area that’s made up of his in exploded form all over the place, blood everywhere, and him just crying about how much it hurts. It’s disturbing in all the right ways but we still need some understanding here.
That’s something that we’re getting a bit more with Shaw and McGregor, however. The two are dealing with the child molester guy that ended up dead before and he’s on a lot of weird tangents. Ennis is playing to the idea of him being used as a shell here, conveniently able to do so since he died and that makes it easier to communicate with Shaw and McGregor. There’s a push toward understanding the reality of the bible in the world and all with the pair viewing their experience here through it subconsciously to some degree, or something. There’s a disconnect in the dialogue in that I get the general idea but they’re struggling with it all because the guy simply isn’t being clear with them and they can’t make the leap from agents to humans in dealing with a real unknown like this. That at least seems to shift toward the end as the whole setting changes, making it very clear to the agents that this is not within the realm of easy understanding.
In Summary:
I’m along for this ride as long as it goes on because I really want to get some answers to see if Ennis can tie it all together. I can see the big picture idea here easily enough with what I think it is but I also know not to entirely trust myself with his stories. There are some good bits here in exploring the agents’ lives and issues, as well as the sidebar about identity and all, but it feels more soapbox-y than anything else. Sudzuka gets some good stuff to work with here as I love the detail of where Shaw and McGregor are in the warehouse but I also have a strange affection for their stakeout location with its starkness.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: January 16th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
