Wild’s End #6
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artist: I.N.J. Culbard
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Life in the quiet township of Lower Crowchurch will never been the same after the town drunk sees an alien spaceship land. These last few issues of Abnett and Culbard’s tidy mini-series have traced a small group of town residents around the countryside as they attempt to quell the invasion of some clicking, robotic terrors.
The description of The Wind in the Willows meets War of the Worlds is apt. The characters are all anthropomorphic animals, yet appearances are the only thing that makes them animalistic because Abnett does such a great job of developing the characters. Mr. Slipaway is the main character, a former Navy man, who takes the reigns of the quest to defeat the aliens. He seems to know much more than he lets on to the other characters. Even Fawksie, the town drunk, becomes more dimensional as he sobers up and takes up the fight.
Despite the serene environment of the setting, Abnett makes sure to throw the characters into disarray as no one is safe from being toasted, literally, by the mechanical invaders. Culbard’s minimalist, clean cartooning is in stark contrast to the violence going on around the characters and the chaos of alien invasion, which makes the book intriguing from a visual standpoint.
This issue is the final issue of the mini-series, and while I loved every minute of it, I was disappointed with how it ended. I don’t know if BOOM! plans on publishing more, but I certainly hope so. This issue really didn’t tie up things neatly. We don’t get any further hints as to Slipaway’s past or even if they have actually stopped the invasion. The end of the book points to more, and I certainly hope more will be made.
As an opening story, this 6-issue series does a good job of setting up the world, but feels like it has a long way to go to telling the whole story. The characters come together and take out only one of the bigger lamp-post-looking machines, but I want to see more!
Overall, this is a fun issue, but leaves a huge opening for more. Let’s hope Abnett and Culbard come back!
Rating: 7/10
Jeff Jackson
jeff@comicattack.net
