Heavy Metal Comics 2021
Written by Ron Marz
Illustrated by Paolo Armitano
Coloured by DC Alonso
Lettered by ALW Studios’ Troy Peteri
At the end of the American Civil War, a ragtag squad of Confederate soldiers calls upon the ultimate evil to save the South. Now, the remains of their unit must team with Union soldiers to survive the horrors of the Swamp God.
Well now this took me by complete surprise and I absolutely love that! When you go into the story blind and it is nothing like you are expecting it to be that’s an absolutely thrilling thing to experience. Plus it’s Ron Marz writing this and the man is so gosh darn talented that you know, just know that this is going to be something extraordinary. The setting for this couldn’t have been any more brilliant and as the story gets to its ending we realise what this is going to be about, somewhat mind you or at least you think you know what the story is going to be about but you know what they say about someone who assumes. I also thought that the way this opened up and how that carried things through to the end was something unique and again unexpected and that’s half the fun of reading.
I love, love, love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter really does wonders in portraying them as real people instead of two-dimensional characters. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages introducing the characters, the story and this world we’re drawn in like moths to a flame.
I greatly appreciate how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge, grow and strengthen in such a short amount of time. The layers of course contain the characterisation, the plot twists and all the good bits and whether they work with the main arc or swirl around it they bring depth, dimension and complexity to the story. The way that we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is brilliantly achieved.
I am loving the interior artwork for this book. The linework that we see is clean, crisp and strong and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create this level & quality of detail work that we see is astonishing stuff. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds being utilised because this is a swamp and the possibilities to expand the moments should be seized. As it stands the composition of the panels does bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective within the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work here is equally as brilliant to see. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of how colour works and how to maximise its effects.
With a brilliant setting and a classic style confrontation to open up the series where it goes from here is going to be exciting to watch unfold. There is everything and nothing familiar with this story and that’s part of the excitement that surrounds it. With some brilliant writing and characterisation alongside some phenomenal interior artwork Heavy Metal once again shows they are unafraid to showcase some of today's best storytelling.