Titan Comics 2015
Written by Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Illustrated by Neil Edwards
Coloured by Ivan Nunes
Lettered by Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt
Tom Stoddard is at a loss. He finds himself in Salem, on a mission like no other. He and Jennifer Querry have discovered their true goal is to save a little girl called Dorothy from the hands of the Templars. With an angry mob descending, Charlotte realises Tom is faced with choices he never thought he’d have to make, and has to decide what kind of man, and what kind of Assassin, he really is…
I am already a huge fan of this series, there’s just something about the concept and implementation of it that just screams holy cow this is awesome. Right now we’re mostly concentrating on the past as Char is a silent passenger in her ancestor's journey. It’s kind of fascinating to see that there is the technology to do that in this series, if we can see shows like Stitchers how far off can this tech really be? It’s just the right amount of blending what could be with what is that makes this so exciting.
Experiencing what Char does with her ancestor and seeing him in one way and not really understand the man he is is this great contradiction. He’s so wound up in this Creed of his and his mission that he can’t see beyond it and Char thinks he’s unemotional and distant when i’m not sure that’s who he is. Through the course of their fleeing the Templars and having to do what they’ve done in rescuing the girl Dorothy we see just what kind of power the girl possesses and it’s both important and frightening.
It’s also kind of illuminating as well. Char seeing Dorothy and having her talk to her as the passenger inside her ancestor is for me one of those critical moments of this issue. She’s been trying to find a way to figure out how she fits into all this and it seems she’s beginning to learn and take this all seriously and not just from an outsider’s point of view. While the connection isn’t strong enough for her to understand his actions it is enough that she’s starting to understand the mission itself is the key. I have to say the writing for the running sequence is absolutely incredible and how it all unfolded well yeah that’s just wetting the appetite for me.
The more I see of the kids who got Char into this the more I want to learn about them. As well as the Templars they are running from. There’s so much emphasis on the past that the present is a little neglected but hey we’ll hopefully get to that in time. Still though the dynamic of those three is pretty volatile and i’m really curious as to how they got together and how they’ve managed to work together this long as well.
I’m also such a fan of Neil and Ivan’s. The work done on the interiors is just as fresh, exciting and interesting as the story itself. Sure the dress of the Assassin’s isn’t that much different than things we’d see today but it’s old world enough to make it old fashioned enough to set it apart. The use of pages and panel layouts is great they really help the flow of the story move nicely. Plus just the attention throughout is phenomenal and Neil’s style is just his ya know it’s unique and so nice to just take in.
Titan is showing their diversity in their projects and proving they have the talent to handle anything and everything. It seems to me it’s series like this that are helping Titan rise like their Greek Gods namesakes.