The end is just the beginning.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tim Seeley
Art: Corin Howell
Colorist: Mark Englert
Letterer: Marshall Dillon
What They Say:
Chip is faced with two options…run like hell from a town he’s lost to Nazi vampires, or team up with a pair of barely sober hicks who hate him in order to rescue the woman he loves. Tough choice.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The first arc of Dark Red comes to a close here and it does both a solid job of wrapping up events and setting up what’s coming next. Tim Seeley manages the pages well so that it doesn’t feel too rushed on either count, which is pretty critical as you don’t want that happening for either piece of it. I’ve always been a little hit or miss with his work but he’s got Dark Red down right. It also helps that Corin Howell has put together a great looking book and works a semi-minimalist approach to some aspects of it with backgrounds and settings that let the character material really drive things forward. I like her designs in general but she definitely scores well with both Chip and Evie, making me want a lot more time of just the two of them hanging out together.
The opening aspect of this issue was a bit of a rough one as it’s Chip writing a letter to Evi which means Marshall Dillon gets to go all script-y on me, making some of it a little hard to read depending on the size – and for some people that can’t read cursive to struggle a bit I’m sure. The narration/letter is nicely done as it shows how Chip has become a better person thanks to her but it mostly serves to lead into his arrival at Kamille’s facility where she has Evie bound up and ready for sacrifice. Chip’s always going his own way but he comes across as authentic even as he does a speech here after sidelining Kamille for a moment. His impassioned plea for them to not get taken in by the Nazi symbology and how Kamille and the others are just looking to use them is really well done since he has the context and history to make it really connect. Of course, the vampires just want to rumble and follow the head vampire in charge with Kamille.
The action component is driven well at this point with Chip going all in to deal with those that won’t think better of it and he gets some decent help from Evie since he slides her a pair of crosses. It’s a good piece that leads to an almost comical bit in how they figure out how to escape, essentially making the lake holy and flooding the place, but it lets both Chip and Evie fight, deal with nearly losing, and coming together as a solid team with a bit more potential as well. I’ve liked their dynamic since the start and the growth that it’s had so seeing them working together so well here and Chip going the distance with her offers up a slew of storytelling possibilities. Which I’m still surprised about in the epilogue as the expansion of the world is not something I was expecting. I figured we’d get a miniseries and be done – though I’ll say I wish it was a series of miniseries instead of an ongoing so that it could manage things better.
In Summary:
Dark Red is a lot of fun even if it may be going too big too fast with how it wants to expand the world – and that’s just within this series. I do wish we had more time with just Chip and Evie but I like where the potential for each of them lays going forward. Seeley plays with some of modern-day politics here in an interesting way through Chip and it comes across as earnest in the right ways, though easily ignored by far too many. Corin Howell has some really great pages and I just love her designs for Chip and Evie as they feel the most authentic of them all. It’s a good book with some dark fun and twists that tries to go back to near-reset stage here while knowing that it can’t. I’m excited to see what comes next and hope that the team can pull it off successfully.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: July 24th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
