Creative Staff:
Story: Elliot Kalan
Art: Andrea Mutti
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Detective Zelda Pettibone and mayoral advisor/angel of vengeance Gina Greene are onboard the death train and determined to end Maniac Harry’s rampage of terror once and for all! But what chance do two people have against an unkillable, mindless engine of death? And with Harry hot on the heels of the train’s only survivors, will there be anyone left to save? Plus: a glimpse of Gina’s earliest summer camp encounter with the Maniac!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a lot of crazy action aboard the train the last time around, I’m really impressed with how well Elliot Kalan has managed to script this to make that sequence as engaging as it was. And for Andrea Mutti to illustrate it in a way that keeps your attention. Comic book action can be dicey at the best of times in terms of presentation but the pair here managed to make a simple fight/flee sequence aboard the train work with all the tension and excitement it would have if this was a live-action project and not a comic. You could get the sense of the location with the visuals, the fight focused on the actual hits landed and the fear that’s raised, and it made it so easy for your mind to fill in the sounds and smells of it all as part of the overall subway system to give it the grounding it needed.
This issue actually opens with a tale from 2009 where a younger Gina and her boyfriend at the time dealing with a cabin in the woods sequence being chased by the Maniac. It’s what put her on this path of understanding fear and more because of it, as she lost the man she was with but somehow managed to survive herself and carry all the regret and guilt of it. This is why, as the fight escalates on the train, Gina is more than comfortable in trying to give her partner an edge in getting out of this with the kids. She’s a bit fatalistic about it, and understandably so, but she takes a huge gamble in a great way that really makes for an exciting fight as the Maniac swings his sword around she hopes to trap him and deliver the killing blow herself. It’s a good plan if not for his ability to seemingly escape any situation.
Of course, as we’ve seen with other instances of trapping this guy, as good as the plan may be it still doesn’t deliver. And instead, we have a situation where the higher-ups have to deal with a train full of dead people and no killer caught. And, the train itself not being in as good of condition as started. But Zelda and Gina’s actions have forced him into a spot where they can either just relocate elsewhere and start anew or they can stay in the job that absolutely nobody wants. Well, except for them now as they’re intent on taking down the maniac. It’s amusing to see how all of this comes together and some of the politics of it since the pair can obviously get a lot of grief for what they did but also get a lot of praise for saving a couple of kids at a time when the police are more militarized than ever before.
In Summary:
With the series wrapping up in the next issue, this one gives us the brief clue about what may be going on and then hammers it home with the final page so that it’s just blunt. I get the reason and even the execution, but it just felt a bit heavy-handed with what it’s trying to accomplish. This is a really solid issue all around, however, as we get the final bout of action on the train with a desperate plan that leads to our two leading cops finding themselves acing some realm trouble. I love the bookend pieces overall that expands the scope of things and that it was mostly kept out of earlier issues and am curious to see how it all come together next time in the final installment.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: May 12th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99