The end of the beginning.
Creative Staff:
Story: Inaki Miranda, Roy Miranda
Art: Inaki Miranda
Colors: Eva de la Cruz
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
Extinction day hits humanity like a thunder of death. The countdown to extraction hits zero. The beacons activate and destiny speaks. Nothing will be like before. Not for Hototo. Not for Tala. Not for anyone.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Miranda Brothers have been crafting an interesting story of a world in peril across the five issues with the premise of saving many of the kids in order to keep the species going before it all comes to a disastrous end. I’ve really enjoyed the creativity of the visual design of the book and the story overall, though I wish it had a little more meat on its bones. But it also worked well for what’s basically the third act of a movie with the hard push to reach the final destination before the big event happens so I was willing to give it a little space, especially since I knew it’d read even better when you could dig into all five issues at once.
The finale met expectations for a lot of it before opening up to the real story that’s intended here. We see the hard push to get as many kids into these ships as possible play out and the scared and confused looks on their faces. It focuses initially on one of the other locations than it has in previous issues as a tsunami overwhelms, eliminating the ship and the kids in the destruction. That puts more of the pressure on watching what happens to Hototo as he’s running scared, ends up being saved, and drawn toward the ship by a military guard who is intent on saving as many kids as he can. It’s also a tragic scene because as they get close they realize they can’t get them on and Hototo sees Tala behind a fence crying out to him. It’s a chaotic mess where everything is building up and there are only a few pages left, leaving you really wondering how it all gets wrapped up.
What we see in these final pages, and the postscript from the creators, is definitely interesting. Watching as the kids arm equipment transforms them into adults, apparently living an experience while in there, and saving the world from the insect invaders. That it shifts three years later afterward sets open to a new story to tell of what the world is like. But it’s the postscript that really engages because they talk about how this is the first step to building their own wider superhero universe, one that had to be told separately from any knowledge or known plans for it so that it survived on its own first as an origin story. I’m definitely interested in seeing what they have planned and have hope for more backstory to explore how it all came to this point. The small bit showing a galactic council that had to decide whether to help humanity or not was definitely interesting and it speaks to a much wider plan at work here, which is very appealing.
In Summary:
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this series from the start with its design and style so I’m certainly not unhappy to learn that there will be more and that there are some potentially expansive plans in place for it. It’s an interesting shared design that’s coming up that’s separate from how most are standard present-day pieces and that’s going to be a big chunk of the appeal for me. This issue puts us through some solidly tense moments as the end of the world inches closer but the gaps that are introduced really have me hopeful that future works will explore it more so that it can be given the weight it needs considering the buildup here. Definitely going to be an interesting ride.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: February 17th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
