Review: A WALK THROUGH HELL #1

A WALK THROUGH HELL No. 1
AFTERSHOCK COMICS – @AfterShockComix

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITER: Garth Ennis
ARTIST: Goran Sudžuka
COLORS: Ive Svorcina
LETTERS: Rob Steen
EDITOR: Mike Marts
COVER: Andy Clarke with Jose Villarrubia
VARIANT COVERS: Andy Clarke; Francesco Francavilla; Robert Hack; Hoyt Silva; Goran Sudžuka with Ive Svorcina; Ben Templesmith
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (May 2018)

Mature Readers

Created by Garth Ennis and Goran Sudžuka

“One”

A Walk Through Hell is a new comic book series from writer Garth Ennis and artist Goran Sudžuka.  The rest of the series' creative team includes colorist Ive Svorcina and letterer Rob Steen.  Publisher Aftershock Comics describes A Walk Through Hell as “a new kind of horror story for modern America.”

A Walk Through Hell #1 focuses on two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents.  The older agent is Special Agent Shaw, who is nearing her 40th birthday and who is still haunted by her last investigation.  Special Agent McGregor is younger; a male, he is still idealistic about his career.

Shaw and McGregor are assisting two fellow agents, Special Agent Goss and Special Agent Hunzikker.  When the two agents fail to stay in contact, Shaw and McGregor head to a Long Beach warehouse that Goss and Hunzikker were investigating.  When they arrive, they find the local police acting strangely and a warehouse where something peculiar and maybe unbelievably dangerous awaits.

A Walk Through Hell #1 is not so much a chapter as it is a teaser trailer for a comic book.  Garth Ennis has been one of the best writers of violent action comic books over the last three decades, so he has been treated like a prince of the realm... of American comic books.  DC Comics even allowed Ennis to liberally use the racial slur “nigger,” in the comic books he wrote for them, even when DC had no African-American writing DC Comics titles.  Ennis' comics are consistently entertaining, in a bracing sort of way and are often quite imaginative and sometimes poignant.

A Walk Through Hell #1 is just too cute and coy for its own good.  It offers 20 pages at a cover price of $3.99, yet the information AfterShock released about A Walk Through Hell does more storytelling than this first issue does.  No unknown or novice comic book writer would be allowed to deliver a first issue like A Walk Through Hell #1, no matter how good he or she was.  This is star creator privilege run amok.  Yet I know that, overall, this might be a good comic book when we finally get an issue in which something more than story cock-teasing happens.

Goran Sudžuka offers some solid drawing, and I would say good storytelling, if the storytelling here was not vague.  Colorist Ive Svorcina delivers some solid, moody and noir-ish colors that recall the coloring on classic DC Comics/Vertigo titles.  Rob Steen's lettering does as much to create atmosphere as Ennis' writing does.

Maybe next time...

6 out of 10

[This comic book includes a preview of The Lost City Explorers #1 by Zack Kaplan and Alvaro Sarraseca.]

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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