AfterShock Comics reviews: Artemis, Dead Day, Disaster
Reviews on the following Aftershock comics in the order I read them:
- Artemis & the Assassin (1-4)
- Dead Day (1-2)
- Disaster, Inc. (1-3)
Individual series information can be found here
Series: Artemis & the Assassin
Issues: 1-4
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Russia, 1916. An assassin (with some shiny weapons, I love that the art visibly depicts that) works to kill Grigori Rasputin in order to start a war. And Maya (the assassin) is obviously not from this world.
Artemis is a human fighting in WWII, and she’s in Special Ops.
The end of issue 1 has a short called “Zen & the Art of Assassination,” which shows the end of Maya’s training and the beginning of her getting her own missions. And I am so glad they continue it in issue 2!
BUT...not after that? It’s pretty upsetting and makes me SAD.
Learning about Artemis’ past is very interesting
In the single page of Maya against the backdrop of flames, her nose ring and chain aren’t there. It’s a sexy picture nonetheless. The contrast of colors is fantastic.
Her weapons are fantastically scary.
At the end of issue 2, Artemis accidentally knocks the two back in time.
In issue 3, we learn how spread out the assassins are, over our own time.
And I felt an utter feeling of dread in issue 3. I really hope this isn’t over in 5 issues because that’ll be moving way too fast for me. But this issue in particular got me HOOKED.
Saving Maya’s life in turn saved Artemis’.
We learn about Maya’s history (and I learned of a place in historical India I don’t think I have ever heard of before). I really do like the notion that a ruler should be more than his military.
And Isak? He’s worse than I realized.
Series: Dead Day
Issues: 1-2
Rating: 4/5 stars
Some of the signs on the cover of issue 1 made me chuckle.
I like how both of these issues open with a poem, and I hope the others continue in the same fashion.
On Dead Day, the dead crawl out of their graves to see their families when the sun goes down. When the sun rises, they’re gone again.
Or, at least, that’s what is supposed to happen according to Melissa. But she goes to stock up on special bullets, Revivalists are intuitive about when Dead Day will actually be, and there is a lot of mystery about the day.
Melissa, the mother of our family needs to leave on the night of Dead Day. Her husband, Daniel, doesn’t seem to expect her to come back and feels like she’s betraying their family. Their daughter, Jewel, is a young kid and is happy to spend time with her daddy. Their son, Brandon seems to be a pre-teen, and he wants to go out with his friend (whose dead are cremated so they don’t worry about Dead Day).
We see that those who had been killed come back with vengeance, which reminds me of the “Anita Blake” series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Melissa meets up with her deceased ex, Jeremy and...he has issues. He was a bit of a loose cannon alive too, and being dead for 15 years has only hardened him.
Melissa wasn’t much better back then either.
The Dead Day info at the end of issue 1 is awesome.
In 2, we learn there is a Bureau for Post-Life Affairs, and that is really cool.
Billy sneaks out with his best friend Zack to a Resurrection Festival that Lily invited them to. She’s with the Revivalists...and this festival ends unit 2 being creepy as the hell they emulate.
Series: Disaster, Inc.
Issues: 1-3
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
We begin with Eva and Hanno observing butterflies in Fukushima, Japan, seeking out deformities in them. Hanno is violently killed and while Eva doesn’t find physical deformities in the butterflies, their behavior sure is odd…
And in the background is a shadow Samurai.
Then we shift to Paolo and Abby. Paolo is the president of Disaster, Inc., which--if I understand it correctly--is a company that exposes people to dangerous situations. Abby is in charge of thoroughly investigating the people who sign up (and obliterates their files after reading). And while unauthorized people aren’t supposed to get on the bus after everyone arrives, Paolo likes his money more than a thorough background check.
That’ll bite them in the butt.
But for this “season,” they are heading beyond the border of Fukushima’s “exclusion zone,” and closer to ground zero. It’s going to be a terrible adventure for them, I know.
As Paolo discusses “containing [the] fallout threat, we learn Eva made it through the butterflies alive...but she is not going to get through the heavily enforced borders. Yeesh!
Fukushima, whose lore is steeped in Samurai culture, is now a haunted place.
Paolo and Abby’s group seems to be lost, until Paolo explains he purposely led them to be surrounded by the radioactive soil and water. People seem to fall prey to the demon Samurai (who is drawn so very awesomely), but falling prey doesn’t have to be physical.
No, even more eerie than what Hanno and Eva encountered, is when a hazmat team from the Sepco company sets out to check on one of the reactors 6 weeks ago.
Even more eerie is how Abby reacts to the butterflies.
Even more eerie is the butterflies as a whole.
The end of issue 3 left me confused yet still intrigued, hence the rating.
- Artemis & the Assassin (1-4)
- Dead Day (1-2)
- Disaster, Inc. (1-3)
Individual series information can be found here
Series: Artemis & the Assassin
Issues: 1-4
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Russia, 1916. An assassin (with some shiny weapons, I love that the art visibly depicts that) works to kill Grigori Rasputin in order to start a war. And Maya (the assassin) is obviously not from this world.
Artemis is a human fighting in WWII, and she’s in Special Ops.
The end of issue 1 has a short called “Zen & the Art of Assassination,” which shows the end of Maya’s training and the beginning of her getting her own missions. And I am so glad they continue it in issue 2!
BUT...not after that? It’s pretty upsetting and makes me SAD.
Learning about Artemis’ past is very interesting
In the single page of Maya against the backdrop of flames, her nose ring and chain aren’t there. It’s a sexy picture nonetheless. The contrast of colors is fantastic.
Her weapons are fantastically scary.
At the end of issue 2, Artemis accidentally knocks the two back in time.
In issue 3, we learn how spread out the assassins are, over our own time.
And I felt an utter feeling of dread in issue 3. I really hope this isn’t over in 5 issues because that’ll be moving way too fast for me. But this issue in particular got me HOOKED.
Saving Maya’s life in turn saved Artemis’.
We learn about Maya’s history (and I learned of a place in historical India I don’t think I have ever heard of before). I really do like the notion that a ruler should be more than his military.
And Isak? He’s worse than I realized.
Series: Dead Day
Issues: 1-2
Rating: 4/5 stars
Some of the signs on the cover of issue 1 made me chuckle.
I like how both of these issues open with a poem, and I hope the others continue in the same fashion.
On Dead Day, the dead crawl out of their graves to see their families when the sun goes down. When the sun rises, they’re gone again.
Or, at least, that’s what is supposed to happen according to Melissa. But she goes to stock up on special bullets, Revivalists are intuitive about when Dead Day will actually be, and there is a lot of mystery about the day.
Melissa, the mother of our family needs to leave on the night of Dead Day. Her husband, Daniel, doesn’t seem to expect her to come back and feels like she’s betraying their family. Their daughter, Jewel, is a young kid and is happy to spend time with her daddy. Their son, Brandon seems to be a pre-teen, and he wants to go out with his friend (whose dead are cremated so they don’t worry about Dead Day).
We see that those who had been killed come back with vengeance, which reminds me of the “Anita Blake” series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Melissa meets up with her deceased ex, Jeremy and...he has issues. He was a bit of a loose cannon alive too, and being dead for 15 years has only hardened him.
Melissa wasn’t much better back then either.
The Dead Day info at the end of issue 1 is awesome.
In 2, we learn there is a Bureau for Post-Life Affairs, and that is really cool.
Billy sneaks out with his best friend Zack to a Resurrection Festival that Lily invited them to. She’s with the Revivalists...and this festival ends unit 2 being creepy as the hell they emulate.
Series: Disaster, Inc.
Issues: 1-3
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
We begin with Eva and Hanno observing butterflies in Fukushima, Japan, seeking out deformities in them. Hanno is violently killed and while Eva doesn’t find physical deformities in the butterflies, their behavior sure is odd…
And in the background is a shadow Samurai.
Then we shift to Paolo and Abby. Paolo is the president of Disaster, Inc., which--if I understand it correctly--is a company that exposes people to dangerous situations. Abby is in charge of thoroughly investigating the people who sign up (and obliterates their files after reading). And while unauthorized people aren’t supposed to get on the bus after everyone arrives, Paolo likes his money more than a thorough background check.
That’ll bite them in the butt.
But for this “season,” they are heading beyond the border of Fukushima’s “exclusion zone,” and closer to ground zero. It’s going to be a terrible adventure for them, I know.
As Paolo discusses “containing [the] fallout threat, we learn Eva made it through the butterflies alive...but she is not going to get through the heavily enforced borders. Yeesh!
Fukushima, whose lore is steeped in Samurai culture, is now a haunted place.
Paolo and Abby’s group seems to be lost, until Paolo explains he purposely led them to be surrounded by the radioactive soil and water. People seem to fall prey to the demon Samurai (who is drawn so very awesomely), but falling prey doesn’t have to be physical.
No, even more eerie than what Hanno and Eva encountered, is when a hazmat team from the Sepco company sets out to check on one of the reactors 6 weeks ago.
Even more eerie is how Abby reacts to the butterflies.
Even more eerie is the butterflies as a whole.
The end of issue 3 left me confused yet still intrigued, hence the rating.