Where do monsters lie? I think we took the wrong train.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Maybury
Art: Sam Lotfi
Colorist: John Rauch
Letters: Adam Pruett
What They Say:
Detective Migdalia Torres investigates a vicious strangling on a Boston subway car with no feasible leads. As potential evidence produces dead ends, Migdalia inadvertently takes in a vagrant named Yusef who may have a supernatural connection to the crime at hand.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’m not from Boston, not many people are actually from Boston. They’re from outside Boston and head to Boston for work, or play, but when people say they are from Boston they usually mean one of the many neighborhoods which make up the city, like Allston or Dorchester or Southie. And unless you’re a crazy person who loves to sit in traffic many folks who travel into Boston take the MBTA in, known as the T. And for folks like me who live on the South Shore, that would mean either taking the commuter rail… or taking the Red Line.
The Red Line is one of the fast, high capacity trains that run through the heart of Boston and stretch outward. A main artery in the network keeping people flowing in and out of the city.
My first problem with this comic… it opens not on the Red Line. They are, in fact, on the Orange Line through most of the comic. But that doesn’t make for a catchy title. Actually, it opens on neither. It opens on a shot of the Marathon Bombing. I’m not about to say that people shouldn’t reference the bombing, it was traumatic and affected a massive number of people. It has no main effect on the plot of this comic. It’s used as a metaphor for unseen terror. Except in this book there are monster monsters, not just men doing evil.
The narrative focuses on two main characters, Yusef, a homeless man who is having terrifying visions of monsters, and Detective Torres, who is investigating a murder on the train. The narrative feels disjointed. It’s hard to tell where reality starts and stops, the pacing feels strange and doesn’t let the reader keep their feet underneath them. Events aren’t always clear. For instance, it took me two readings to realize that the Detective’s daughter might be deaf? The actions of the leads are equally confusing. Torres is acquainted with Yusef for reasons we don’t know and is comfortable inviting him into her home and careless when changing clothes around him in a way that a detective would never be unless she’s unhappy in her marriage. She likely is but it paints this first meeting of her in a poor light for the character who is supposed to be smart and heroic. Or maybe she isn’t meant to be.
The other homeless men we meet are a motley crew of monster men in street clothes. I don’t know how I feel about the message of making the homeless men portrayed as they are. I’ll have to wait to see how the rest of the story shakes out with that angle before making a final judgment call.
The coloring works well, perhaps better than the actual artwork. It’s the pacing I have a real problem with, and the breakdown with reality and horror is unclear. Time passes without visual cues to the reader to let them know time is passing. The whole scene is rushed, there’s not time to build suspense. The horror is the cheap sort, the monsters taking the drooling, bubbling forms of teeth and claws and hunger matched with vibrant colors which look like an acid trip. With only 28 pages to work with for this first issue the story is a rush of chaotic events.
Perhaps the next issue will clarify the context, lay in the background of how Torres knows Yusef beyond beat walking. The author claims he wants to impart his real feeling of the city into the comic, his inspiration, but beyond a few pieces of set dressing, the setting makes no difference. This could be any city, Hollywood Boston shot in Canada. Perhaps next issue, maybe then, we will actually ride the Red Line.
In Summary:
What the Last Stop of the Red Line wants to be is a question I’m left asking. A pastiche of imagery which draws from the horrors that have called Boston home, from the stories of Lovecraft to the Boston Strangler, to the racial violence to the Marathon bombing. Yet it has no voice of its own and doesn’t even draw on its inspiration particularly well. The comic format doesn’t give the story room to breath, there is no tension in the horror. The artwork is serviceable and some panels truly impressive, but it feels at odds with the story at large. This is just the first issue of a four-part series, and there’s still time for the story to find itself, but for now, the readers are left with questions and a vague, lingering sense to not ride a subway car alone.
Grade: C
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: May 15th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
