Titan Comics 2015
Written by Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Illustrated by Neil Edwards
Colored by Ivan Nunes
Lettered by Richard Starkings & Comicrafts Jimmy Betancourt
With his plans for escape foiled by an ambush, Tom Stoddard finds himself captive at the hands of the power-crazed Templar, Samuel Parris. With his life hanging in the balance, Tom faces a grisly end... Can Tom summon the energy to stare death in the face and emerge triumphant, or is this the mission that will finally defeat the infamous Assassin?
I'm incredibly impressed with each issue of the series that comes out.The story and the writing here go places I really wasn't expecting and the fact that this is based off of video game is even more astounding. Granted I'm not a video game player so I don't understand what's going on in the video game itself but for this kind of story to be presented here I am fully behind it 1000%. Not quite traditional time travel but using science and technology to put your mind into the body of an ancestor and witness what they do is really fascinating.That these characters in their own right possess skills such as parkour and fighting so that they fit seamlessly into that crazy world where spies and subterfuge are the name of the game is thrilling.
Equally interesting is the fact that the Templars are still around. Their history is a long and sordid affair of death murder and all kinds of shall we say horrors committed in the name of the church. Long rumored to have been disbanded or destroyed they are secretly still around and this series is using that mythology to its full potential. There's something to be said about sneaking history into a game and kind of giving kids background information on things that really happened in this kind of roundabout manner.
I have to say I'm a big fan of Charlotte's tenacity. Thrust into this world and life that she wasn't prepared for she still strives to be the best she can be and learn as much as humanly possible. The writing here is so good that I am completely caught up in the past and present of this story as they unfold almost simultaneously before us. I love the idea of learning from the past of exploring history and then using what we learn from that to affect what we do in the here and now. Granted what they're doing has a bit more meetings and what I would use it for but still I'm also not in that scenario myself.
I've been wanting to see more of the kids and the present and this issue really delivers. Granted I still don't understand what the heck is happening in the present as much as I'd like to but it's coming together in a way that is almost as much fun to learn as it's presented. The boys writing this are just taking something from a video game concept really and fleshing it out into such a promising series that i'm mesmerized. As much I really have to say that what Charlotte has learned about the past and whose ancestors really needed to be paid attention to that I'm really in most in the whole dichotomy of what happening here.
The more I see if Neil's of artwork the more I have to admire it. He's got such a great resume behind him already but to see him take on characters and basically create them from the ground up and give them life really help me to admire his talent. He's got such a unique style to his work and his eye for the use of pages & panel layout is truly remarkable.
That this crew has taken this franchise and brought it to a completely new and unexpected level makes this one of the year's best book to be reading.