Image Comics 2016
Written by Caitlin Kittredge
Illustrated by Steven Sanders
Coloured by Paul Little
Lettered by Rachel Deering
As Abby's life hangs on by a thread, Dean confronts his own personal nightmare: his murderous father. Hidden in one of Alice's many safe houses, Brad Logan forces Dean to access his psychokinetic abilities-or die trying. And Alice offers the injured Abby a chance to recover her memories of Camp Cheshire? if she's willing to become a killer once again, for Alice's agenda. Neither Dean nor Abby has a way out, and when Ostrander and ULTRA draw closer to finding them, the noose can only tighten?
This is a great twist on that who separatist survivalist type story. The government has black ops running here on American soil answerable to no one. They are on the lookout for those with abilities, telepathy, telekinesis the usual ESP type of stuff and for those that may not be gifted but excel at what they do. They weaponise them turn them into something just short of monsters to be used. It’s a great theory and solid premise to do a story on. It leaves so much wide open for exploration and character development and Caitlin embraces that with aplomb.
I want to rave about Steven and Paul’s work on the interiors for a few moments. The opening here is gorgeous! The woods, the trees, plants the rock in the path it all has that whole look and feel of where Dean is on that bike and the motion of him racing by it’s captured here in ways that you don’t expect and it’s strong stuff. The way Abby keeps coming in and out of her fevered memories showcase a different approach and it’s nice to see that differential. The flow of the story through page layouts with the use of angles and perspective are handled very well. When they can, stark barren rooms aside, they use backgrounds extremely well and I love seeing that.
The characterisation, the premise of the story and how the interaction of these characters is something interesting to witness. This isn’t typical in any way shape or form and what we learn here is fantastic, you don’t need a ton of action to have a thrilling story all it takes is strategic reveals and a few moments of honest tension that move the story forward. This is something that Caitlin has done here beautifully.
I like this take as it has just enough reality to make it creepy and enough fiction to make it deniable. This is one that you should be checking out as it might not be quite what you’re expecting but you’ll find it uniquely fascinating. It’s one of those that has IT but you aren’t quite sure what IT is.