I wish I had a better understanding of what’s going on in this story, but after two issues it’s almost as if I’m waiting for the story to start still. In all honesty you could read the second issue without having read the first and never know it. There is mention of one character from the first issue, in the second issue, and that’s it. Everything else that happens is completely disconnected. The first issue we start off with a dude running. He’s clearly on a mountain top and approaching his base camp. We cut to a woman caring for an old man that’s sick or lazy, I’m not sure. Anyway the frantic running dude comes in and tells them they have to go. He gets a hold of someone on their radio but after it cuts out for a second he breaks the radio. Suddenly some octopus tentacle things come into the tent and rip the old man’s head off. It sounds cool, but when you see it’s underwhelming. The issue is short so I’m not going to spoil the rest of it, but we do get to see the monster and it’s like a combo deal of five other monsters. I’m still not sure how the tentacle thing works with it living at the top of mountain covered with snow all the time, but that could just be my mind over thinking the information.

In the second issue we’re introduced to a new group of people; starting with a dude that flies in to recruit the climber of another group to head to the same mountain and figure out what happened. He agrees because he knows the woman that we meet in the first issue and that’s really the only tie in. The next time we find the guy he’s asleep on the helicopter and wakes up just before they crash.

Both issues have pacing problems. It’s not that they’re too short since they’re about ten pages each; it’s that some scenes are longer than they need to be and then important scenes like just seeing the people loading up on the helicopter, are completely skipped. We meet our climber dude; he finds out about the situation involving his friend and then he’s crashing in the snow and faces off against a wolf. I saw The Grey and I sure as hell don’t want to read it in comic form without any of the character development to go with it.

The first issue’s dialogue is stiff. Sure it’s basically just a guy screaming and a woman talking to dead bodies to see if they’re alive, but I didn’t buy any of it. It came across as exposition rather than what the character would actually say. In the second issue it’s all exposition and I really didn’t understand the point of introducing a character that’s scared to climb mountains. If he makes it to the next issue and lives I’m sure that he’s going to be one of the first to die. If we don’t ever see him again I’ll really wonder why we ever met him in the first place.

The art for both issues was okay. It wasn’t great and there’s an art change from issue one to two. I wasn’t a fan of the second volume’s style as there were too many unnecessary lines on an already complex page to look at. It would have been nice to have one artist for both issues because it would have given more consistency to the story instead of feeling like a reboot of the concept with the second issue.

The first issue is only $0.99 on Comixology and while the price isn’t terrible for the page count it’s still a tough sell. What I battle back and forth with is the fact that you don’t really need to read the first issue to understand the second issue, but then you kind of do. They don’t work apart and yet they don’t fit together. I mean we’re introduced to a giant monster with like five affectations going on and then suddenly a wolf… doesn’t seem that threatening. I can see the potential, but I don’t know if I can recommend it due to the way it’s constructed and presented.

Score: 2/5

Writer: Bradley Golden Artists: Ugur Sertcelik and Matt Santorelli Publisher: Second Sight Studios Price: $0.99 Comixology Link