Well this issue is slightly better than the first issue. Thankfully there’s not attempted rape scene in this issue, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have a sour taste in my mouth from the first issue. There is a pretty big problem with this issue though… it’s boring. Yeah nothing really happens other than more of the same from the last issue and exposition. Lots of exposition. There’s a quick scene in the beginning with Purgatori’s extracted power… at least I think that’s what she is. She’s flirting with the dude that freed her and even she says this book is boring… okay not quite, she actually says that Lucifer is boring, but by extension that includes the issue right?
Back with regular Purgatori we find her stumbling out of a trailer having slaughtered a bunch of pigs. She takes the farmer’s cell phone and calls one of her associates to pick her up and to bring chains. The dude arrives and the minute they leave they’re picked off by some other gang of people. They take the pre-chained Purgatori to their boss which is another classic Chaos! Character. Also one of the few I know and followed, but I won’t spoil it. What follows is a lot of exposition.
Writer Aaron Gillespie loves to have one-off characters talk too much. In this issue it’s the farmer as we hear his entire conversation with his wife. The entire point of the conversation is to let us know that there are pigs in the trailer and yet we hear a lot more than that. It didn’t do anything for the story and really one line of throwaway dialogue could have told us the same info. I don’t know if the intention is to make the world feel real, but it’s not succeeding. It instead makes for several pages of annoying character interaction.
The exposition is killing this story. Too little is being shown and instead is being told. The character appearance at the end can’t even be classified as James Bond Villain exposition, that’s how bad it is. Mostly because the character is just rambling and giving backstory. We are reading a comic right? Why the hell couldn’t we just cut to the backstory? I mean Javier Garcia-Miranda already illustrated it, why not just let the characters talk in the past rather than talk too much in the future? The result is a lot of boring reading and no character development.
Speaking of Garcia-Miranda, the artwork isn’t bad. It’s detailed and well structured. The backgrounds are definitely the weakest link, but at least there’s something there. Sure it’s the same mountain range copy and pasted, but it’s better than a solid color. The blood is a nice effect and there’s plenty of it in this issue. The art could be better, but only if the story was better first. Garcia-Miranda is doing the best he can with what he’s given to work with.
I really don’t see myself coming back for a third issue. There’s nothing going on and the outcome of the storyline is pretty obvious after just two issues. I might check in on it down the road, but considering the same basic formula was used for this issue as the last; well I’m not expecting much to change in the next few issues is what I’m saying. If you’re enjoying it cool, but for everyone else this is a pretty average comic book.
Score: 3/5
Writer: Aaron Gillespie Artist: Javier Garcia-Miranda Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Release Date: 10/29/14 Format: Print/Digital