Murder in the timestream will always get a look.
Creative Staff:
Story: Stephanie Phillips
Art: Francesca Fantini, Meghan Hetrick
Colors: Lauren Affe
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
What happens when a time-traveling assassin and a spy from 1944 try to kill each other?
For a price, a top-secret assassination organization will travel through time and inter-fere with watershed moments. Trained as the agency’s top assassin, Maya is sent to kill Virginia Hall, the deadliest spy of WWII. Charged with carrying important plans about the invasion of Normandy to the allied troops, Virginia’s death would have a cataclysmic effect on WWII as we know it.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
There are certain subjects that will always get my attention since they offer some chance for interesting explorations. While time travel is used a bit more now than it used to be it still has a lot to it that I like and Stephanie Phillips has a fun opening book here with a cold-hearted killer doing the hard work in history in eliminating threats. It’s a streamlined piece in this opening installment to showcase the style and action and she handles that and the dialogue well. The art team on this with Fantin and Hetrick definitely holds a lot of appeal but I can comment on so far as my review copy was black and white, so how it comes across with Affe’s always strong color work can’t be commented on here. What we do get definitely looks great and I want to see more.
The premise is kept simple here in that we’re introduced to Maya, a hard young woman that’s working as something of an archer in her opening tale with modern design to the outfit. She’s gone back to kill Rasputin while he’s traveling the countryside by carriage and we get to see how she strikes him down. It’s a quick and efficient thing that leads into how she’s pulled back to her operations center where the tease of the bigger picture is. It’s not clear how big this organization is but there are relationship dynamics at play with her handler there and there are those that dislike her with how sloppy she seems to get, referencing her takedown of Atilla the Hun in particular. It works well to set how the group is and what Maya’s place is in it but that the draw of killing people is the main thing, though hopefully it’s just in relation to bad people in history. But we also see some of the bonds as well, such as how she was rescued as a child and brought into this.
With that in mind, the back half of the book takes us to the 1940s as we’re getting closer to the end of the war, though nobody knows that. The focus is on a woman named Virginia that has been operating with a group in France to fight back against the Nazis. We see her doing an assassination attempt and then blowing up a bridge which plays out beautifully here. The downtime later is where things get interesting, such as seeing what she’s likely lost in the cause but also having a messenger come to deliver information about the upcoming Normandy landing and what they need her to do. But this is where it ties into Maya’s story, which isn’t clear in the slightest here. And certainly a cliffhanger because what we get for Virginia prior to that is definitely interesting and leaves you wanting more of it in order to see what she’s up to.
In Summary:
With this review copy being uncolored, I really can’t say too much about the art beyond I like the designs that I can see here and the flow of the story is solid. A color job can radically change how a book looks and I have no doubt that Lauren Affe can take the appealing artwork here and make it even more engaging and appealing. Phillips’ storyline is definitely nicely done here as we get some of the basics with plenty more to be learned so that it’s not an overload of information. It’s smooth and straightforward and leaves you at the end wanting more, which is always a good thing.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: March 18th, 2020
MSRP: $4.99
