Creative Staff:
Story: Si Spurrier
Art: Nathan Gooden
Colors: Addison Duke
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
1899: Nettie Bridger is reluctantly persuaded to leave Brokehoof and abandon all hope of finding the lost son she’s convinced is still alive. But in this accursed valley of perfectly circular boundaries, every road out coils its way back to the centre, where a great, ghastly beast lurks.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As this Si Spurrier series moves further along, I’m glad I made it past the rough start that it was and got into how engaging it became as it laid down a lot of foundations and historical pieces. Once it got rolling with the characters themselves it definitely worked better and it continues to expand to show us what’s going on in this area and with these people. Spurrier has Nathan Gooden here on the artwork, whose work on Barbaric recently really blew me away. Here, he’s working a completely different thing in a number of ways but it still adheres to that kind of grim and grimy world of those scraping out an existence. It has a really great sense of detail, hardened character designs, and a sense of being lived-in in all the worst ways to give it some solid authenticity.
This installment definitely pushes things forward in a big way without really revealing too much when you get down to it. But it hits that sweet spot where it’ll cement interest to be sure. With Nettie struggling over where her mind wanders when it comes to Caleb, she now has MP and others working to get her out of Brokehoof for a while and that means some dogsled teams on the move. There’s some good dialogue during a lot of this but it delves into various myths and ideas of what’s going on and just how the world itself is broken and nobody seems intent on fixing things. It’s not a bad discussion but one that’s at least a bit tough to read when you see what people are facing now. Which is part of the point because the world is always hard. The group dynamic is one that has its moments and is something that I’ll say again will read better in collected form with a binge read.
When the teams cross into an area that has really thawed considerably, that has them thinking that things are going to look much better soon if it keeps thawing further north. But this is also where the faceless guy on the spider is and he’s sending back anyone who has the wrong “color” about them within as they’re not allowed into the world, fearing that they’ll bring back more people looking for gold and the like. This turns into a real bloodbath before we know it but Nettie is the one who seems like she’s able to get free as she doesn’t have any of the rot within her that he sees. But since she’s intent on saving at least MP and has her larger goals, and has a real issue with the faceless guy who is now going on about Caleb, you know she’s not going to leave until things are really done and dealt with. But that looks like it may come at a real price.
In Summary:
The Rush continues to be a fascinating book. I really love the visual design of it and how Nettie is being presented while digging the whole location and vibe that Spurrier has come up with for Brokehoof. The natural of the supernatural or whatever it is here is fascinating as well and those two worlds took a huge collision with this installment that leaves me wanting to know more about everything and to get a better understanding of the how and why of it all. It’s definitely a series where I’m the least sure of what’s going to happen next and that just makes it all the more exciting for me.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: February 23rd, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
