When friends give you a hand.
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 – is so close to the end of this case, with only one obstacle in his way…unfortunately for Win, that obstacle is a Colossus-killer.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Sympathy for No Devils draws to a close with this issue and it’s been a weird and interesting ride. Brandon Thomas takes us through the finale in the way that I like least where it’s mostly the main character narrating what happened after the events of the previous issue so it’s all flashback. Not that I expect a lot of tension or anything with characters being killed, but by doing it this way it eliminates a lot of different things. Lee Ferguson continues to have a lot of fun with the visual design for the book, especially with the colossal, but just in general working some weird and wonky things at times. It’s definitely been enjoyable on this level and Jose Villarrubia did a great job with the color design for it.
With this exposition-laden design, we see how Winston and Raleigh did their best against the colossal and figured out the whole murder thing. That was apparently still the story I guess because I lost the plot along the way. A good chunk of the explanation goes into a thing about a shapeshifter being the killer, some weird blood issues that hid things, and some sort of resolution for it all that really just falls flat. Which isn’t a surprise because this wasn’t the intention behind the book. As Thomas says in the post-script page with this issue, the whole story really revolves around bringing back together Winston and Raleigh as friends after events changed their lives. Which isn’t a bad concept to work with but when the murder story that drew them together just falls as flat as this does, well, it’s not a great sign.
The final fight is one that really does a number on both of them, however, and when Winston wakes up he’s surprised that Raleigh is already there. And that Winston now has one of Raleigh’s hands because he had lost his own and his best friend donated his in favor of a mechanical hand. It’s almost cutely romantic in a weird way but comes back to that whole thing about Winson being the last human on earth and there not being a lot of options. This then quick turns its focus on Addison and the secret trick at play with her being dead, which is just more fun with magic, and provides for a bit more action to romp through before wrapping things up with the expository debrief that Winston is going through by relating everything. Again, it does things nice and neat – except for the shapeshifter thing – but it also just delivers it instead of really taking us through the experience.
In Summary:
I wanted to like this book more than I did. I think it has some interesting ideas and world design behind it but the execution early on dropped us into it in a way that kept the whole setup from connecting. I loved the character of Winston and Raleigh really grew on me across it as we get more on him. But the story never gelled and we didn’t have enough grounding in order for it to grow naturally, leaving it to come together in ways that just didn’t make narrative sense. Everything wraps up neatly here even if I dislike the method through which it’s done. I wouldn’t be adverse to more since I’ve got a bit of a handle on the concept but I’m not finishing this up clamoring for more.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: February 24th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
