Last Wolf Legion: Source Point Press 2021
Written by Garrett Gunn
Illustrated by Kit Wallis
Lettered by Dave Lentz
The Warcorns investigate a hostile threat on Earth with the potential to destroy the universe. The scariest thing any human can possibly imagine - a kid's birthday party!
This, now this is an adult funnybook! There are two things about this that immediate comes to mind, one is that this was written by someone with children and two it’s what people without children imagine this would be exactly like this and that makes it universally enjoyable. I love that this embodies what I see as something purely adult in its manner and yet just so gosh darn fun to see. I laughed so much during this issue and I haven’t this kind of genuine belly gut laughing in such a long time. There aren’t a lot of books being made to today that are so unapologetically fun, outside the box and just plain silly. It is literally a breath of fresh air in a sea of familiarity of angst and depressing darkness that we see all too often. So that we see these hardened warriors in this situation made my day.
I 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 we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations which they encounter do wonders in how we see them portrayed as the tough marine types that they are. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we get caught up in this superb story.
I really like the way that we see this being structured and how we see the layers begin to emerge and grow. I also like the way that this one ends and leads into possibly the next one which looks just as interesting and fun to me if not more so. The layers contain the good bits like the characterisation and the plot twists which add some great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.
The interiors here are utterly fantastic! When we get to the bash and we see all this happening the linework is fantastic and how we see the detail work is superb. I wish we’d get to see backgrounds being utilised I like the way that they enhance the moments still with the composition within the panels we get to see the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented yee for storytelling. The creativity and imagination on display here is com-letely and utterly marvellous. The colour work is beautifully rendered. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show an extremely talented eye for fow how colour works to get the maximum effect.
This is a perfect example of why I love comics. It doesn’t fit into any of the current niches that we see in the market today and it has this whole unexpected originality. Sometimes you just need to let the dogs out and laugh your sweet behind off. This is extremely well written and beautifully illustrated so you’ll want to get lost in the story. This couldn’t have been any better than it is.