*I did not have the digital copy of the book, so all scans were done on my phone*
Written By: Mike Mignola, Cameron Stewart, and Chris Roberson
Art by: Mike Norton
Colors by: Dave Stewart
Letters by: Clem Robins
Cover by: Duncan Fegredo with Dave Stewart
Price: $3.50
We start of with just a quick recap explaining that Ashley Strode basically went AWOL to take on demons all by herself.
We also get this pic of the team lineup looking pretty badass...
The book starts off with a kid in Oregon sitting in a field by what looks like an abandoned house. Then all of a sudden a toy car rolls up to him from the direction of the house and the kid decides to see who pushed it out to him. I guess he didn't really notice the bloody fingerprint on it!
Then we are taken to the mean streets of Eugene Oregon as Ashley is in pursuit of her perp. The panel layouts in this sequence are simple, but set the tone of how long and intense the chase actually is. The art and inks give you a good amount of detail in the backgrounds as well, something that most books overlook, but actually make or break it for me.
This is the first few panels we get of the chase,
you gotta get the issue to see the best parts!
So after jumping from windows into neighboring buildings, going up and down stairways, and going from room to room Ashley finally pins him down. Unfortunately for her, it was into a room that this dude wanted to lure her to. The walls are filled with demonic writing and symbols and the crazy bastard doused himself in gasoline!
Here we have our creepy guy covered in gas.
Ashley, for some reason tries to reason with this bastard to keep him from setting himself on fire. He's not having it as he speaks in a demonic language and ignites his zippo. Then we see what i paid my $3.50 for, Ashley calls on the power of Durga and her rosary bursts into a fiery sword.
I can't get enough of fiery swords manifesting into your hand.
They are so much more cooler to me than light sabers.
When she does this we can actually see the demon that is controlling the creepy dude and they battle, if you wanna call it that. Come on, like he had a chance! Okay, so after the battle Ashley finds a ring with an engraved symbol. She goes back to her hotel room trying to piece all of her clues together. With some help of a local woman she learns about a town where kids are always turning up missing without a trace.
So she heads of to meet with the parents of the most recent child that went missing. They tell her that they know who did it and that the sheriff is too much of an idiot to do anything about it. They tell her about the Satanic Copeland brothers. As she searches for them Ashley gets attacked by two jabronis. The poor bastards never stood a chance.
I had to show the full layout of this "fight".
I can imagine Jim Ross calling this like it was a Hell in the Cell match.
"OH MY GAWD!!"
Needless to say, she gets these goons to spill the beans on who sent them and where she can find them. So she heads off to the location and we see what looks like that abandoned house from the beginning of the issue in the middle of the night. That's where this book ends, and we will get the continuation in issue 141, which will be posted soon.
I really enjoyed this book. It seems a bit strange that we have a team book focusing on one character, but its a character that I Love so I had no problem with it at all. It gave it an X-Files or Walking Dead vibe, which is okay for a few issues. It had a good mix of story and action, the writing was really good, and the art set the tone and mood of the whole book. I make no secret about it on Twitter that I think Dave Stewart is the best inker in the business. I usually buy a book just because he inked it.
On to the rating! I have to give this book a 4.5 on the beard scale. It just fell short of a full beard, but it may have to do with the fact that it is a set up to issue 141 and I am fine with that.
Until next time, DatBeardedBastard is out...
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