Strange things are afoot in 1920s America.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Sable
Art: Giorgio Pontrelli
Colors: Pippa Bowland
Letterer: Thomas Mauer
What They Say:
Miskatonic Valley holds many mysteries – cultists worshipping old gods, a doctor deadset on resurrecting the recently deceased, a house overrun by rats in the walls – but none more recent than a series of bombings targeting the Valley’s elite.
These horrors reach a breaking point when the brilliant, hard-nosed investigator Miranda Keller is sent to stop the bombings. To J. Edgar Hoover, there can be no other explanation than those responsible for similar actions during the Red Scare of the 1920s…but when Miranda digs too deep, she uncovers an unimaginable occult conspiracy, one that may cost Miranda her job – and her sanity.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having not read too much of Mark Sable’s works over the years I was keen to see this new series from him at AfterShock after the intriguing Godkillers series. Here, we’re getting something that plays to the weird, violent, and unusual in interesting ways but it’s a rough start to events as you have to suss out some of the context. For this work, he’s joined by artist Giorgio Pontrelli who captures the time period well, especially with the almost sepia styled color design by Pippa Bowland. That helps to bring it more into a particular line and time and place which works well while still having its own feel and variety to the colors. But it’s definitely an earthy work when you get down to it.
The premise introduces us to what I think is 1924 when Hoover ascends to the position of director of the Bureau of Investigation, or lat least acting director. As is his plan, he’s looking to go for a more muscular route which means things aren’t good for Agent Keller, the only woman there that’s done excellent work on the Mann Act and violations related to that. With Hoover looking to purge elements he doesn’t want to deal with, he runs into the problem with her in that she has some papers that makes it easier to keep her on in order to keep her silence. What he does is assign her to a case involving the phrase “plain words” which is part of a larger plot of anarchists that had come before but thought largely dealt with. It may be a copycat, but it’s surfaced again in the Miskatonic Valley in Massachusetts where in the port town of Innsmouth an explosion has happened.
The town is amusing as there are fears still there from a plague outbreak the last time around but it’s more likely rooted in miscegenation instead. Here, Keller is paired up with a former detective named Tom Malone who has some clue as to what’s going on and is working with her on it. What we get is a look at the nature of the town and the way things feel odd but also how Keller is able to feel fresh at this point as Hoover’s Bureau is focused on the science of things and understanding more ways to discover the truth. We do get some decent moments of them trying to figure some out of the explosion that killed Ephraim Waites but left no body behind. Sable is able to hint at some of the biases of the time with anarchists and the like, but as we get closer to the end and get more of the stories about fish-men and other strange beings, this is shaping up more like an X-Files style storyline than anything else.
In Summary:
Miskatonic has some feel of the familiar to it with the general broad strokes of the story but I’m just interested to see this play out in the time period it’s in. Watching the push and pull of societal issues at the time and how it unfolds is interesting and setting that against the strangeness we get at the end of it definitely hits a sweet spot for me. Sable’s script is pretty good though I wish there were just a few more blunt moments in setting up the time and place for readers while Pontrelli’s artwork is spot on, especially with how Bowland colors it. I’m definitely curious to see where it goes from here and to discover what the real truths are, which hopefully aren’t easily sussed out to something simple and mundane.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: November 11th, 2020
MSRP: $4.99
