The Threat #2
Story by Mark Schmidt and Vince Chuter
Written by Mark Schmidt
Art by Daniel Wichinson
Letters by Mark Schmidt
Cover by William Allan Reyes
Stratum Comics
Release Date: October 2012
Price $3.99
Stratum Comics’ The Threat is currently the only title being released by the company. It’s a small publisher of passionate comic fans in Texas looking to make a dent in the independent cape and cowl comics scene. Waerloga69 reviewed the first issue recently (you can read that here.) Like that review mentioned, The Threat is about a future Earth where governments have fallen apart and been replaced by other entities. In Houston, where this story takes place, the people are governed by a corporation called AniTec.
Due to some experiments gone wrong (oh, comic books) we now have a portion of the population that has been mutated. These mutants are referred to as Virals. Now, there seems to be the implication that some of these Virals will eventually team up and battle the evil corporation. We aren’t quite sure when that will occur, but we are given some insight into each of the eventual team member’s lives. This second issue focuses on some character background and a pretty solid escape scene. We are still left a little in the dark as to the story though.
This issue brings us art by Daniel Wichinson, who did not illustrate the first issue. His art feels consistent with the previous issue, but I felt his fight scenes were a bit more dynamic. I mentioned an escape scene above. This scene looks great. The colors are fantastic. The panel layouts compliment the suspense very well. All in all, this issue is worth that scene. There’s are also a fun moment where three separate timelines, thematically linked, are presented in side by side columns to great effect.
Mark Schmidt and Vince Chuter (who are both credited for the Story, though Mark is listed as Scripter and Letters) are clearly trying to tell us a large story here. In my opinion they have started that process, but not without a few problems. My main complaint is the increasing amount of time shifts in the story. It jumps back and forth between a number of years and it’s a little hard to keep track of. A few readings will straighten it out, but for a comic just starting up, it’s a risky move. I’m still interested though and I think most superhero comic fans would be too. Support this indie comic, cause I think there could be a great story just around the corner for this title.
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment