“The Sad They Walk”
Creative Staff:
Story: Ed Brisson
Art: Damian Couceiro
Colors: Patricio Delpeche
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
It’s complete chaos as interdimensional bounty hunters descend upon Vanessa and crew. One of our heroes will sacrifice themselves, but will it be enough? Will Vanessa manage to get Dougie home? Is there even a home to return to? And what will happen to everyone else?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Beyond the Breach draws to a close with this installment, though with the hope (but not promise) of meeting again in the future. The opening couple of issues of this series shined with potential and the expansion that it could run with but it got mired down in simple journey-action and a taste of one side story focusing on Samuel. Thankfully, 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.
With so much of the past for Samuel and his battle against the Maccans having been revealed, we now at least have a better idea why he’s fought so hard and why they’re continuing to go after him. Catching up with him at the end of the previous issue, the face-off here is fairly standard as we get Samuel doing his best to negotiate to surrender himself in order to protect Vanessa and Dougie (and Turtle). Vanessa’s not keen on this but actually accepts it after a bit, which is a smart move all things told, but you know it can last for only so long. After all that Samuel did, she can’t help but to try and rescue him, which doesn’t go well for the first part of it as they all end up being transported through to the other side of the portal.
Which is just a surreal kind of hell zone of creatures and chaos. It does make for some creative moments visually, which makes for some really neat panels, but it does come down to Vanessa trying to save Samuel from Orak and really getting into all of it between all three. It has a good flow to this part of the action and it wraps up well enough even if it goes for the familiar levels of sacrifice, with one character down and the opening to Vanessa’s world closed once she manages to get back to the other side and Dougie. That lets her finish out the other promise she had in trying to get Dougie to his relatives and getting a taste for some of how humanity is surviving in this chaotic world. The problem is that the world just doesn’t feel like it was explained well enough in how things are and the scale of it doesn’t click – even if we’re just talking about a small part of Idaho.
In Summary:
Overall, I enjoyed this series and the potential of the premise as promised in the first couple of issues. It’s also done in an open-ended enough way for there to be more, which I’d be totally up for. I just needed more worldbuilding in this one to try and explore and explain some of what’s going on here. Brisson did a solid job of bringing something fun and different to the table here and Couceiro’s artwork was a lot of fun to watch play out, especially some of the more creative creatures we get through the portal. This’ll likely read a bit better for me in a full book setting but I’m glad I got to go through the monthly discovery process of it as well.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: October 20th, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
