Dynamite Entertainment 2015
Written by Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by Eman Casallos
Coloured by Adriano Augusto
Lettered by Rob Steen
Just when you thought this story couldn’t get any weirder Cullen decides just for the fun of it to prove us wrong. With all the teams being sent to different points in history they’ve managed to make subtle yet significant changes to the timeline. Here we see how those effects affect the team when we get a slew of altered characters.
The newly revisioned characters arriving in the knick of time during battle to help stave off the party goers as they attack. This time around though we get a look at who’s who and that is something i’ve been wanting since the cast here has remained so large. Sixteen heroes eight of whom have changed and eight haven’t, yet. This battle royale we are seeing is magnificently portrayed by Eman and Adriano. So many characters, so much action it’s all you can do to scan the pages to see every minute detail presented to us! Not to mention the changes we see in how the “new” behave.
Cullen’s characterization continues to amaze me. Now suddenly there are variations of characters that I want to see explored more! There’s a plethora of possibilities laid out before us and it continues to make these heroes more relevant than ever before. With a quick recap of how the changes occurred thanks to the Red Spider it’s easy to follow along and understand what’s happening. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again the man knows how to create a huge epic story and keep easy for the reader to follow, enjoy and understand what’s happening.
With all the chasing they’ve been doing they really are not much closer to catching up with the Red Death than they were at onset. This is kind of fun and honestly shows just how powerful and dangerous she is. I’ve never seen a villain portrayed so well with so little information about her. We really aren’t getting much in the way of motivations but what we do learn is more from henchmen or associates than the proverbial horse’s mouth. This quite possibly makes it the most interesting and simultaneously frustrating story i’ve had the pleasure to read.
There’s a constant flow to this story where the character pop in and out of time sometimes changed completely and sometimes not. It’s this unpredictability that keeps me paying as close attention as I can to the story and each panel on each page. That as a reader you are so invested and enraptured by what’s happening showcases the talent of all these fine folks in creating a story like no other.
Sure next issue is the final (?) showdown with the Red Death at least for this story and from everything that’s happened thus far it promises to be the best issue yet. Dynamite has long been the best home for public realm characters and this is no exception they’ve taken those forgotten by time and turned them into fresh, interesting and worthwhile heroes and heroines again.
Forget event stories from the supposed big two the real sweeping epic story for the year is right here!