
American Mythology Productions 2019
Written by Mike Wolfer
Illustrated by Roy Allan Martinez
Coloured by Periya Pillai
Lettered by Natalie Jane
This canonical sequel reveals terrors that will leave you with nightmares as rugged Townsend Harper, Jr. and beautiful Virginia Maxon face the legacy of her father's mad experiments into the creation of human life in mysterious chemical vats. But the creatures birthed by science are far from human, misshapen and monstrous beasts who hunger for human flesh. As they fight for their lives in the jungles of a secluded island hell, Townsend and Virginia find that their enemies include not only a horde of fiendish creatures, but a detachment of soldiers led by British Army lieutenant Arkwright, who has resumed Professor Maxon's doomed experiments to create his own army of beasts. Only one can possibly save Townsend and Virginia and stop the mad British officer's scheme... the fearsome creature of inhuman strength who answers to the name Number 13!
Fracking Covid made this take so long to come out but I will say this boy was it ever worth the wait! The story Mike is weaving here using the characters from the original and then some is utterly spectacular. The first page here is a wonderful bout of catch-up as Bulan, Townsend, wanders the underground tunnel system looking for Virginia.
I am enjoying 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 while working to move it all forward is presented exceptionally well. I mean whether it’s narration, dialogue or through actions how we learn information is presented in a myriad of ways and it is fantastic plus it ties in tightly to the character development. Which is spectacular by the way and there’s no greater moment to demonstrate that then Virginia doing what she did upon meeting Arkwright. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story with its twists and turns along the way it creates an incredibly dynamic tale.
How we see the being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and emerge. I like being surprised and there are a few moments when I was surprised genuinely so and those moments are what makes me love this series. I do like how we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
I am a huge fan of the work Roy Allan does on the interiors here. I love the linework and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to bring out this kind of attention to detail is stupendous. I also like that Bulan is shirtless the entire time though I wish he had some hair on his chest or a least a happy trail. That backgrounds are so integral to how we see the story and what they bring to the moments as well as the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story that we see is incredibly well rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work we see is phenomenal. How the various hues and tones within the colours are ing utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a true understanding of how colour works. Plus i rather like seeing how it helps shape the musculature, Bulan, as well as seeing more than one technique in laying it down.
This is so true to the source material that it just reads so incredibly well. You forget in this modern world that once upon a time authors knew how to capture the imagination of their audience in some of the simplest yet complex ways imaginable and this creative team takes that inspiration and brings this to life in that vein.