It’s the end of the world – but there’s always hope.
Creative Staff:
Story: Isaac Mogajane
Art: Santtos
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
It is said that when the world dies, the spirits of the first people will return to witness the last days of humanity. Well, the spirits have arrived, and the end is here. But not everyone has given up hope.
Naledi, a teenage girl living in the deserted city once called Johannesburg, has always believed that there is a land, hidden away in time where the gods still live. And where there are gods, there are miracles. Perhaps even miracles that are big enough to save our dying planet. And so, after a lifetime of isolation, Naledi will head out into the unknown with little to hold onto but her faith – and her magical pet plant, Buyo.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things that I really like with publishers like AfterShock Comics is when they step away from the creators that they work with a lot and introduce us to something new that isn’t a part of the comics market as most fans see it. This series comes from writer Isaac Mogajane, a South African writer who also cofounded a film production company there. He’s working with artist Santtos who is out of Brazil as they tell the story of Johannesburg in the year 3119. That means a real blending of styles and approaches to storytelling but also background and presentation. The book leans a little hard on word translations at times, which is good and bad depending, but overall it presents an interesting tale that is, to be honest, quite universal.
The premise for this is familiar enough as the world in 3119, at least in South Africa, is pretty much a dead and dying on. Johannesburg is a dead city that has realized it and has only a few real inhabitants left eking out some kind of living. That’s where we meet Naledi, an albino child who does his best to secure things for his mother and a special plant that he’s been taking care of for some time. One evening at home goes particularly bad as his mother is talking about living gods, her place in the world, and so forth before she finally just returns to rest. She has no memory of it the next day – going so far as to say Naledi dreamed it herself – before sending her on her way for the day. That leads to some of the usual things for her, but tragedy strikes when she returns home to find her mother dead.
That sets her on a mission to find this place her mother talked about, special plant in hand, and to see what else is out there in the world. It’s a familiar setup with some nice little differences in that Naledi seemingly can see ancestors and spirits from the past, some that have spent time protecting her. She had hoped they’d protect her mother as well but she’s now frustrated that they didn’t. So what we get from there is her journey a bit later where she comes across a group that are scavengers of some sort only to end up in trouble with them – of her own making it worse – before being rescued by someone else who has their own grand designs on her. It’s not the deepest of hooks we get in the final pages, but the opening issue as a whole is a giant hook just in not being a familiar thing in the trappings and execution of it all, which makes it quite interesting. It’s left me wanting to know more of what Mogajane has in store and to see what else Santtos has up their sleeve.
In Summary:
While I can do some basic guessing at the course of this series simply because I’ve read so many stories over the years, it’s the execution and trappings that will draw readers in. The team here is certainly distinctive and this is exactly the kind of stuff that kept me reading comics in the 80s with the independent books that were out there when I was tiring of superheroes as a kid. And are the kinds of books that stuck with me years later. The script works well even if there are times some of the interchangeable language was a bit frustrating to the flow, while the artwork has a whole lot of appeal. I’m definitely intrigued to see where all of this is going to go and where both writer and artist are going to shine more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: February 2nd, 2022
MSRP: $4.99
