An explosive ending.
Creative Staff:
Story: Stephanie Phillips
Art: Robert Carey
Colors: Rosh
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
A week ago, Miriam Pascal was a college student worrying about exams. Now, she’s trying to harness new-found supernatural powers, and stop a secret Russian organization known as Red Atlantis from infiltrating the US government. International espionage and long-buried family secrets clash head on as Miriam races to save the world.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Red Atlantis draws to a close with this issue though it feels more like the first chapter of the story coming to a close more than anything else. Stephanie Phillips has plenty of room to expand on this in the future and I hope there is more because it only begins to ask the questions here. Robert Carey has given this book a solid look that fits in with the theme really well and they’re able to bring it to a close well here too, especially with a big airport action sequence. There’s a lot going on in this issue and the team comes together just right to deliver what turns into a solidly built work of tension and explosions that does leave you wanting more of it.
The story moves along in the two-track approach pretty well here with Miriam now waking up on the helicopter where she’s meeting her paternal grandmother for the first time. It’s a chaotic piece that really should have been handled better on the grandmother’s part in that Miriam shouldn’t have been woken until on the plane and out of the country. There are some questions tossed here but it’s mostly superficial stuff. At the same time, we get our FBI agents moving quickly in following the helicopter with Sasha in the back seat. They’re all having a “discussion” about whether he should have a gun when they confront those that took Miriam but the reality is that Sasha was already armed and just going along with things since it’s in favor of his goal of protecting Miriam. This trio is definitely fun and if there’s more they definitely need to reconnect.
When the helicopter does land, it doesn’t take long for Sasha and the gang to arrive and throw a wrench into the escape plans. It’s not a bad confrontation at a small airport and you get the grandmother throwing around her diplomatic immunity, but it turns into a gunfight quick enough and works to whittle down the numbers well. But it also centers on Miriam well as she confronts this sudden grandmother she has and the claims she’s making along with how she intends to take Miriam to Russia. That has Miriam pushing back vocally and with her powers so that she can make her own way in the world. That it doesn’t work out quite that way as others have made their plans and have to live with it, but the ending here sets us up for a new dynamic with the potential to move things forward, especially if there is a much larger scale to what’s going on in Russia.
In Summary:
Red Atlantis had a chaotic but interesting start and then moved in what feels like another direction. That direction is interesting enough and has me wanting more, but it played with some big and epic things at the start that ended up being pushed aside even though they’d be massive gamechangers in how the world works. That said, the smaller focus on Miriam and Sasha worked well, I liked the time with the FBI agents, and the teases of the bigger picture are certainly interesting and have me wanting to know more. I’m definitely game for more of it while also acknowledging that the book has a strange kind of natural end here as well.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: March 17th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
