American Mythology Productions 2018
Written by Pat Shand
Illustrated by Richard Bonk
Coloured by Beezzz Studios
Lettered by Natalie Jane
While NASA warns of the potentially devastating consequences of a meteor storm closing in on the planet, it's the horrors that hide inside the falling debris that present the real danger. An unstoppable horde of terrifying space hornets has descended upon Earth and they are going to eat their way through every living thing in their path. This is big screen drive-in grindhouse at its best! Devastating meteor impacts, diabolical alien hordes, and only one person with a chance to end the terror before Earth becomes a hive of swarming death!
If there are things that anyone knows about me its that I like good horror stories, even bad ones to me are good, American Mythology and Pat Shand. Combine all these things into one and viola you’ve a damn good excuse to pick up a comic book. I like the way this is told and the structure of the story is extremely well done. From the eye catching opening through the journey of how Rider Kilgore gets to where we see him throughout the book as it’s present day setting.
The whole idea here isn’t exactly far-fetched and a more reasonable explanation would be if these little meteors survived entry in our atmosphere but going up to a big one, blowing it up ala Armageddon, is a little more fun. Also that this could very well be one of those made for SyFy films and be more successful than that damn Sharknado. If you don’t think so read the book. Plus from concept to execution here this is by far one of the more fun things I’ve read lately.
So as far as the assembled cast of characters we really only get to see Rider, well we also meet Dr. Manny Sherman and he gets wrapped in this in an interesting twist of fate. Otherwise at this juncture the only other mainstays that we see are the suits and their role gets summed up darn well by Rider himself within these pages. I look forward to seeing and meeting the people that will be alongside Rider as things become a little more sticky. After all it’s only the first issue and while Pat does a marvellous job introducing this there is still a lot more yet to happen.
I’ve been a fan of Richard’s for a while now and it’s always a pleasure when I see his work. His people have a great authenticity to them and the creativity and imagination we get to see on display here is superb. These flying things are the perfect example of identifiable and still alien and kind of frightening as well. I love the use of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels as they show off his eye for storytelling. Backgrounds are hit or miss and sometimes with all the action they aren’t needed, that’s not gonna stop me from wanting to see more though because when we do they expand the story nicely.
I am really impressed. Pat’s always been a really strong writer and seeing this kind of story where he gets to kind of unleash and bring us this subject matter and bring this leading man to us is fantastic. I get feelings and influences from what we see and yet they just that because in the end everything has an originality all it’s own.
A modern day look at an over the top science fiction double feature show. I ask you what is more fun than that, I’ll tell you absolutely nothing! Another amazing story from American Mythology, Pat and Richard!