Boom! Studios 2017
Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Illustrated by Chad Lewis
Illustrated by Dee Cunniffe
Lettered by Ed Dukeshire
In this stand-alone Kong story, the year is 1912, and a wealthy humanitarian has travelled to Skull Island with the purpose of civilizing the native Tagatu living there. Although the Tagatu accept his gifts and allow his team to live among them, they’re devoted to their god…and the team soon discovers that Kong is very, very real.
I will wholeheartedly admit that the price tag on this one took me a little by surprise. Not quite two full issues I would have thought this would make more sense at a dollar or two less would make more sense. For this price I think it should have minimum ten more pages to it.
That being said the story here is pretty standard though that doesn’t make it any less interesting. We open with Mister Copeland in a small plane that flies through a storm where he sees an uncharted island that has a settlement on it. By the grace of god he is able to return to Sumatra where then gets an expedition together to go back and explore the island and turn them to Christianity. While I hate that part it does sit well with the year this takes place. Actually it’s something that makes sense so it’s a good starting point.
Now those that have crewed with Copeland before have gotten big payouts from those adventures so they are now expecting the same thing. While one man of the initial landing party points out the solid gold bracelets and his eyes light up with green. That was something I wish we’d something develop out of. It has the potential to lead to another aspect of the story as well as finding out just what this island has in store for them outside the walls. I think that was a missed opportunity.
So their first exposure to the native populace was amazingly well done. I like how they dressed to be on the beach and how the crew mistook them for something they weren’t. It definitely has a creepy factor to it that would fit well with something out of Jeepers Creepers or Children of the Corn by it’s very nature. It does however establish first contact and an invitation to their village. Meanwhile out at sea Mister Coopers boat has a totally different experience.
The interiors took me a minute to warm up to but I found Chad’s work to be quite subtle and extremely nice to look at. Dee of course does her bang up job on colours. Together the effect is rather striking and I like how they almost are able to make it feel like this is from 1912 as well. The use of page layout through their angles and perspective are fantastically done and show a good eye for storytelling. The backgrounds when used are phenomenal and those little touches, the birds on the rocks, really make some stellar stand out moments filled with tension.
Miss Talbott, or Mary, is someone Mister Copeland fancies and has had trouble finding ways to tell the young woman how he feels. She’s really pretty much a straight up Missionary and is there to spread the word of her Christian God. We see she doesn’t waste time trying to “civilise” these people in teaching them how to plant seeds and grow food and she’s reading them the Bible. It never seems to go well when the “white man” comes to force an outside religion on a native peoples. Their worship of Kong has them all perplexed and yet undaunted in their intended work.
So where does Kong fit into all this? You’ll have to read the book to find out but suffice it to say it’s good stuff. Even more so are the creatures we see that live around the walls of the settlement. The imagination and creativity we get to experience here is superb to see on the page. With action, horror and even romance this is one of those stories that makes you think back on the original King Kong picture and my friends that’s never a bad thing!