POST AMERICANA #1 (OF 7)
IMAGE COMICS
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
STORY: Steve Skroce
ARTIST: Steve Skroce
COLORS: Dave Stewart
LETTERS: Fonografiks
36pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (December 2020)
Rated M / Mature
Post Americana is a new six-issue miniseries written and drawn by Steve Skroce. Skroce may be best known for his work as a storyboard artist for the film-making siblings, The Wachowskis, especially on their Oscar-winning 1999 film, The Matrix. Skroce's recent comic book work includes the 2015 miniseries, We Stand on Guard (co-created with writer Brian K. Vaughn), and the 2017-18 miniseries, Maestros, both published by Image Comics. Colorist Dave Stewart and letterer Fonografiks completes Post Americana's creative team.
Post Americana #1 is set in a dystopian future. The story opens inside “The Bubble,” an installation inside the Cheyenne mountains. It is the most sophisticated super-bunker in the world, and it was built to ensure the survival of America's executive branch of government and its most important citizens, should the unthinkable happen. The unthinkable – the end of the world as we know it – did happen.
When the world ended, however, the executive branch never got to use The Bubble. It was taken over by the elite, also known as “the one percent.” Eighty years later, one of their own has named himself the new President of the United States, and he plans to subjugate those who survived outside The Bubble in the American “Wasteland.” He plans to use the bunker's resources to rebuild the country by turning the Wasteland into what he wants it to be.
The only thing standing in his way is Mike, a hapless rebel, and Carolyn, a deadly Wasteland girl, who is already hellbent on revenge. But Carolyn and Mike will have to survive the Wasteland in order to save the Wasteland.
THE LOWDOWN: First, I have to keep it on that real, boo (dear readers). I have been partial to all Steve Skroce comic books ever since I saw first, the art he generated for The Matrix and secondly, read his four-issue story arc, “Blood Debt” (May 2000 to August 2000) that he produced for the original Wolverine ongoing comic book series (the one that began in 1988). I was also a fan of his run as artist on the Gambit (1999) comic book series, and, at one point, I bought a few back issues of The Amazing Spider-Man that Skroce drew in 1996 and 1997.
I was a huge fan of We Stand on Guard and of Maestros. Now, I am already a fan of Post Americana. I will admit that it is not his best-drawn work, as the art for Post Americana seems less detailed than that of the ornate illustrations of Maestros. It is as if Post Americana was drawn in haste, in a way that his previous Image Comics titles were not. Still, the storytelling is strong, and as ever, Skroce can deliver wild action scenes and graphic depictions of gory, brutal murder and mayhem. Plus, Dave Stewart's colors make the art seem to pop off the page, the way his colors did in Maestros.
So, I'm back in black – Skroce's black humor. And, of course, I highly recommend what looks like it is going to be the wildest of comic book rides.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of Steve Skroce's comics and of post-apocalyptic sci-fi will want Post Americana.
9 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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