More secrets explored.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brandon Thomas
Art: Lee Ferguson
Colors: Jose Villarrubia
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
Winston Wallis – the last human in a world of monsters – has an uncanny amount of good luck. Elbow-deep in his newest investigation, Win stirs up a hornet’s nest of conspiracy. Will his luck finally run out?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a couple of issues behind it at this point, I’m still working to get a handle on this series from writer Brandon Thomas. I’ve got parts of it down and the core of what the job that’s been given to Winston Wallis to serve as the last human on Earth, apparently, but there are so many conflicting things that the whole thing feels like a twisted dream playing out. Lee Ferguson delivers a good looking book with some great artwork but the lack of color in our review copy makes it hard to tell exactly who is who, especially since there are a few human-like folks here that may be monsters in coloring only. But the book is kept small overall so it does largely work with what’s going on.
Winston’s time in this book is one that puts him through his paces as we see him with the mayor, Addison, as she extracts what she needs from him in the form of answers. She plays the dual role of also being his mistress and he can’t help but to submit to her, though he’d give her any answers willingly anyway because of their history. The history here is complicated and I’m not sure I get it other than she was involved in why the world is like it is now and why he’s the only human left. Which in turn is what’s keeping the monsters from evolving to their perfect selves because of the corruption of humanity in the world. The relationship these two have plays out pretty well as we get a handle on who Addison is but she also makes sure that he’s given a really rough time, including being knocked out and tossed into the river by the end.
The rest of the book involves Crae as he comes up with a cover reason to hit a particular location and arrest a lot of people so he can go “behind the scenes” to where Mr. Lilac and his hired hands are waiting for him. This whole thing just didn’t click for me as there’s so much about how this world ended up like this that hasn’t made sense or been talked about that I feel like I’m missing more than half the conversation in another language. That Lilac is upset about Winston being drawn into things is no surprise as there were issues with that since moment one, but I did like the basic gangster-elements of this sequence overall even if made no sense from where I’m sitting.
In Summary:
I liked a bunch of pieces across the first two issues and even liked the early stuff with Winston and Addison here, but Sympathy for No Devils continue to be a problematic book in that I really just don’t get the whole structure and setup of how this world works. And that lack of understanding on my part makes it so that I can’t understand how the dynamic works between the characters. Winston doesn’t have a great run here as he gets abused pretty hard and it’s easy to see that Crae isn’t in for a good time either. I’m curious to see if this gets pulled together into something more cohesive.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: December 30th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
