“Never Be The Same”
Creative Staff:
Story: Ed Brisson
Art: Damian Couceiro
Colors: Patricio Delpeche
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
The origin of The Breach is revealed, and Samuel’s dark, bloody past along with it. But is it too late? Can The Breach be reversed? Or is this life the new normal for Vanessa, Dougie, and Kai? With a group of interdimensional bounty hunters hot on their heels, this new life may very well be a short one.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the next issue set to be the final one, I’m not expecting this to have a real kind of finality to it but perhaps some closure for one or two of the characters. And hopefully, another miniseries in the future as I’m curious what Ed Brisson has in mind big picture for this property. There’s a lot of potential with this series and the expansion it gets here helps. Damian Couceiro’s artwork gives continues to look great and fits the premise of the book while feeling like it’s really good in terms of creature design and keeping the flow of the story moving smoothly. They’re colored by Patricio Delpeche, who does a really solid dive into capturing the mood right and shifting it as necessary as everything goes along, making it a thoroughly engaging book as all the craziness unfolds.
This installment goes for a lot of backstory and exposition but it’s worthwhile as it helps to explain some of what’s going on. With the dead giants in front of them and Samuel explaining his guilt, we get a deeper look at how it all happened. Dougie and the beast end up playing in the trees and largely away from this for a while and that lets Samuel and Vanessa talk, though it’s mostly Samuel explaining all of this. It goes back to his people being simple farmers whose lives were destroyed when a large group of people known as Macans ended up falling from the sky into their world. They’re basically science-fiction types with energy weapons and armor so they took over quickly and ruled over Samuel’s people. That caused a great many to die as they were worked to death and starved to death and that went on until Samuel himself finally reached a breaking point that his pacifist people have.
Exploring his resistance, we see how he managed to take down a lot of them but it came at the cost of his soul. But we also see how there was a seemingly endless number of Macans that would show up, kill one and ten more replace him. Eventually, he ends up on the losing side but only manages to escape thanks to his tortoise coming to the rescue and the way he managed to grab one of the transportation devices the Macan used. It looks like these are one-way moves to another world/dimension, leaving me wondering if this is basically a Many Earths tale and that Vanessa’s journey will be trying to get back to where she started but unable to as the device only moves you forward. She’s taking what Samuel says well, but the realization that there’s no actual path back home is starting to hit her.
In Summary:
With the series wrapping up a bit quicker than I expected it to in the next issue, I’m definitely a bit apprehensive about how it may just try to end things too quickly or be too open-ended. I do like a five-issue series as it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but this series has gone with such a big picture concept and slower pace in its overall execution that I’m just wary. Brisson covers a lot of ground in this installment and Couceiro really gets to deliver with some great action along the way and looking at Samuel’s people and how it went down in pretty good detail. I’m excited for the finale but there’s that edge to it.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: October 20th, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
