Review #5: No Tomorrow 2 of 5

No Tomorrow 2 of 5

STORY & WRITER: Raven Gregory

PENCILS: Luca Claretti

COLORS: Liezl Buenaventura & Carlos Corea

LETTERS: Jim Campbell

EDITOR: Ralph Tedesco

Assistant EDITOR: Hannah Gorfinkel

Story so far…

Death is a natural part of life, but what happens when it goes rogue? A new horror enters the Grimm universe and it’s one whose name is spoken in hushed tones and fearful whispers. Keres, the Goddess of Death, will wreak havoc on an unsuspecting Earth, and one family man will feel the effects more than any other.

When death arrives at the door, there is… NO TOMORROW!

Previously in No Tomorrow…

After setting off a devastating earthquake in Denver, the Goddess of Death turns her attention to the city of Chicago and proceeds to cause an office building to collapse. But her activities are witnessed by everyday family man, Patrick Gale, the lone survivor of the devastating catastrophe.

So as we end issue one on the obligatory cliffhanger, Issue 2 does an excellent job of taking us in a different direction and establishing, Keres, the Goddess of Death’s character. Where she didn’t speak in the first issue she speaks volumes in issue 2. We begin to understand that she is the Grim Universe’s version of the Grim reaper and a very vengeful version at that.

I highly enjoyed this issues story and felt like the creative team delivered on the promises of the first issue. Raven Gregory does an excellent job of moving the story forward without hand feeding us every detail and at the same time masterfully unfolding this characterization of Death.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of death being characterized. We’ve seen this done in fiction over and over again. Whether as a voiceless grim reaper that simply escorts the deceased to the other side or a sympathetic character who is misunderstood for simply doing his job to establish the natural order of things death has been characterized in many different ways. Though this is characterization we don’t see too often, if at all in fact, but that as a vengeful yet petty spirit.

In issue one Raven Gregory did an excellent job of having us become emotionally invested in the protagonist Patrick and gain sympathy for him. Transversely in issue two he does an excellent job of having us feel apathy towards Keres. No remorse for her actions is portrayed, and when we realize that Patrick was supposed to be in the office building that collapses in the first issue we see her show her vengeful side. She attempts to have a gargoyle fall on him and have him slip on a spilled mop bucket as he leaves the hospital. The comical in nature these events show Keres is determined.

We get a true sense that no one escapes death and she takes Patrick surviving the building collapse personally. As if he slighted her some way, simply by surviving. Her character is established and summed up in the line “There are so many of you. So many hopes and dreams. Born into this world believing that you and you alone will be the exception to the rule. That you will be the one person in human history who will live forever.  That you will find some way to beat death itself. You are wrong. You are all wrong.”

As she is saying the above  line we are brought through several historic events, The Black Death, The Scarlet Flu, and the Smallpox epidemic. Each time she is present, and almost being portrayed as not an observer but the catalyst that caused these events. At the end of this scene we end up in New York at Central Park where Death is, what appears to be, influencing the start of another such event into existence.

Also in this issue Patrick is still recovering from the incidents of issue one. We get the distinct impression that he is having a difficult time dealing with the events from issue one. Just as Patrick in the throws of his depressions Keres appears directly to Patrick and asks him how he can see her. Which eludes to Patrick having some kind of power we do not yet know of. As Patrick is trying to compute what he is looking at Keres threatens to take him and his whole family. At this threat Patrick looses and begins smashing every reflective surface her image appears in. This is a great scene in the book that truly portrays our protagonist’s state of mind and set up the relationship between Patrick and Death.

The art is very well done in this issue, I feel the need to point out that there was a change in penciler this issue to Luca Claretti. Luca did an excellent job of portraying the beats in the issue and capturing the emotion in the pivotal scenes in the book.

My only real complaint is that we seem to change colorist toward the end of the issue, I assume due to time constraint,  but whatever the reason the coloring by the 2 colorist is very different. Specifically in the last few pages of the issue, the art feels completely different than the rest of the series thus far. I would assume this is where Carlos Corea took over the coloring and it seems that he decided to set himself apart from Liezl Buenaventura, and though it was colored fine, It was extremely distracting by the time I got to the end of the issue. I don’t know if they were colored separately and Carlos did not get to see how bob colored the previous pages, but I hope that they can stay more constant in the future.

This is just proof the importance of the colorist in comics. Some people don’t understand the importance of a colorist, but the way a book is colored can set the mood and feel for the issue. So agfain with the coloring styles being so very different the book loses its uniform feel by the end.

But aside from that minor issue the story remains solid and the characterizations are wonderfully portrayed. I find myself really enjoying this story and look forward to continuing reading and reviewing this series. Again I cannot give this story enough praise. And I am glad to see the bar raised in the second issue and hope that the story continues to get better.

I highly recommend picking up No Tomorrow.

I give No Tomorrow 2: 8 out of 10 capes.