Vault Comics 2019
Written by David Andry
Illustrated by Alejandro Aragon
Coloured by Jason Wordie
Lettered by Deron Bennett
A decade has passed since the first Waves hit, unleashing humanity’s darkest impulses and plunging the world into chaos. Paxton, a single father of three, must venture from the secluded haven they’ve built to restock the medicine his chronically-ill youngest son needs to survive. When the somewhat routine trip goes awry, Paxton and his children—now separated—will battle everything in their path to reunite.
Vault quietly came onto the comics scene and I found them with their first wave of titles except Heathen which I still need to read, but Fissure and Colossi made me instant fan of the company. Ever since they've let themselves grow naturally and through amazing stories with amazing creators they've become a go-to company when you want really good science fiction genre stories. Seriously they are in my top 5 company's that I can't live without any more and for me that's saying something. They are also ones that I have absolutely no problem buying the books physically in showing my support, and with the amount I review and my limited spending budget well there ya go.
I was super excited to see this when I went to my shop. I read Vault no matter what and I know nothing about the series before I start reading and I wouldn't change that for anything. I read this and I was mesmerised by the story and I had no idea what was truly going on but I knew it was something epic and different. That was made abundantly clear when we meet Bec, who I fell in love with almost instantly. David does such an amazing job with this and the opening which introduces us to the characters in this story. It doesn't rush and yet isn't slow either as it has this incredibly natural flow to it that draws you in and before you realise it, it's too late and your invested.
The story & plot development that we see in the extremely well paced story with this strong character development has an ebb & flow to it that is surprisingly strong like a rip current at sea. One of the aspects that I really appreciate and enjoy seeing is that we have no immediate explanation for what happened. What this Wave is that's coming and why they need a safe room to keep them safe. We find ourselves pretty much thrown into the deep water and are treading while we watch what's happening. It really is extremely well done.
There is something magical about the interior artwork here. It has this beauty to it that I wasn't expecting and when I hit that two-page spread I was captivated, completely and utterly. The linework is so nice and how we see it utilised to create the attention to detail through it's varying weights and techniques is quite impressive. Also it can be creepy in the same manner it can be beautiful and that's a great thing to see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a magnificent eye for storytelling. The way we see backgrounds being utilised is sensational as well and it really brings this size and scope to the book. The colour work is simply stunning to see. The way the colours are done is new to me and I think there is something to this that just pushes the envelope of what we expect to see and it makes a huge impact on me.
I think this has the same kind of appeal that seeing American Horror Story had the first time I watched it. It is unexpected, interesting, beautifully done and quite dark. This is captivating and mesmerising storytelling and it's so well executed through the writing and illustrations. This needs to be on your pull list, reading list or whatever method you utilise. This is going to be one of the years most unexpected hits.