Further into the maw goes Gina
Creative Staff:
Story: Cavan Scott
Art: Corin Howell
Colors: Triona Farell
Letterer: Andworld Design
What They Say:
The net tightens as Gina realizes her closest ally works for the demonic forces that threaten her way of life. The time for running has passed, but can she trust her new teammates? And what will she risk to save the life of an innocent man?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installments of this series have been fun even if it’s felt like I wasn’t too sure how this world really operated. The more we get into it, the more we learn, and it grows in interest. Cavan Scott’s handling the plot well with that and by giving us some interesting characters, particularly with Gina, it’s pretty accessible. By the third installment, Corin Howell definitely has the aesthetic down and the designs for the characters but we also see Gina go through an amusing evolution at the end here that’s just spectacularly done. The result is that we get a book that feels pretty polished and ready to move forward in full, just one that needs that extra little undefinable oomph to carry it across the line to a must-read book.
Here, Gina’s dealing with the two that have cuffed her and picked her up to take back to Hex only to have to deal with the demonic attack on them. It’s a nice bit of action to watch unfold, even if it goes badly for all involved more often than not, but I had to laugh that they called in a van to essentially sideswipe it and kill it – and then bring it inside the van because the van is a mobile base like a TARDIS. Hex is able to get some details out of the corpse by raising the spirit out from it for a bit and it paints a decent enough picture of what they need to know and go after when it comes to Quill in order to stop bad things happening and deal with the runner. It’s not as jargon-filled as it feels and there’s still a sense of distance with some of the worldbuilding, but it does feel like things are coming together better overall and more cohesive.
All this does in the end, for now, is to get Gina on their side to deal with this. The reveal that Colin isn’t the runner himself but rather that he’s leased out his body to the undead for a while and they haven’t returned it to him gives her the impetus to really figure this out. She gets to work with Wraith-one in starting up this hunt and the two of them together certainly works and is amusing to watch overall, but it takes some minor twists in it when dealing with Colin and trying to find a way to save him and her own place in the scheme of things. It’s something that likely goes back to a bit of what we saw in the flashback at the start to her childhood after she and her parents “went separate ways” and she ended up in the home for children. She hadn’t learned to really manage her powers and how to use them cautiously and she’s wary of going big with anything like this without fully understanding it.
In Summary:
I’m definitely enjoying Shadow Service and as I start up each issue I’m remembering the previous one pretty well – which isn’t always easy with as many books as I consume for review. But Scott and Howell have some really fun stuff going on here with the story concept details and the design artwork for the cast which makes it easy to get back into the groove of it. I really like Gina’s path here as she takes in some pretty big moments in dealing with Hex along the way and then forging her own path while dealing with the wraith assigned to her to deal with going after Colin. It comes together well and definitely feels like something Gina would do based on what we know of her already.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: October 21st, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
