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tikitoka's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
heinzbeanboy's review
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
thumbpricker's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
crookedtreehouse's review
3.0
I've been watching the classic slasher films this week, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Child's Play, so I was excited to read a graphic novel that traded on the same tropes. This volume started to deliver on that premise but really flamed out by the end.
The idea of a slasher who comes and goes as they please in New York is a Friday The Thirteenth concept that failed to deliver (Jason Takes Manhattan). It picks up really well here with a New Year's massacre followed by several smaller scale attacks in the following years. We see two detectives with very different tragic pasts coming together to try and track the killer down, and we even get a Ghostbustersy mayor that wants the problem to go away but actively hinders the detectives from getting their work done.
There were some definite highlights to this story: the entire train scene, the aforementioned mayor angle, the grandparents of one of the survivors being a Fox News viewer completely incapable of connecting to her granddaughter who is an actual survivor of the tragedy and who knows the detective that Fox News is trying to paint as evil, and the interaction between the two detectives. These help balance the detectives' tropey backgrounds, the villain's weakness that we see but no one has yet taken advantage of, and the non-ending that is neither a cliffhanger nor a resolution.
If you like slasher films or stories, I think you'll enjoy everything about this but the end. But there's at least one more volume coming, so let's hope it has a more definitive, or at least more intriguing finish than this one did.
The idea of a slasher who comes and goes as they please in New York is a Friday The Thirteenth concept that failed to deliver (Jason Takes Manhattan). It picks up really well here with a New Year's massacre followed by several smaller scale attacks in the following years. We see two detectives with very different tragic pasts coming together to try and track the killer down, and we even get a Ghostbustersy mayor that wants the problem to go away but actively hinders the detectives from getting their work done.
There were some definite highlights to this story: the entire train scene, the aforementioned mayor angle, the grandparents of one of the survivors being a Fox News viewer completely incapable of connecting to her granddaughter who is an actual survivor of the tragedy and who knows the detective that Fox News is trying to paint as evil, and the interaction between the two detectives. These help balance the detectives' tropey backgrounds, the villain's weakness that we see but no one has yet taken advantage of, and the non-ending that is neither a cliffhanger nor a resolution.
If you like slasher films or stories, I think you'll enjoy everything about this but the end. But there's at least one more volume coming, so let's hope it has a more definitive, or at least more intriguing finish than this one did.
crookedtreehouse's review against another edition
2.0
The comic equivalent of the direct-to-DVD low budget sequel to the not very inventive first film. Cliche after cliche is ... I don't want to say trotted out, because that implies a sense of urgency ... plodded out to its inevitable death. The Final Girl seems to maybe get her revenge, and maybe redemption? But nobody else has an arc so much as At The Beginning Of The Story They Are At Point A and then, without much explanation At The End Of The Story They Are At Point B.
The slimy mayor character doesn't act with any purpose, nor does he seem to have much power. We still only have hints at who The Maniac was/is (but it's the precise same hints we had in volume one). And the worst part is that the author first sets the slashing at an underfunded school, and then at a Yankees game, and manages to squander both opportunities to say anything interesting about education and capitalism or sports fans. There is a vague "corporate schooling is bad" based on the principal's actions, but its otherwise toothless. And the Yankees game slashfest, where most of the bodycount happens, is incredibly dull, and not even visually interesting.
There will presumably be a third volume of this, as The Child Who Knows Something About The Killer hasn't been able to pass on her knowledge about a Very Stupid Weakness that the villain (who seems to be dead) has. But who cares?
The slimy mayor character doesn't act with any purpose, nor does he seem to have much power. We still only have hints at who The Maniac was/is (but it's the precise same hints we had in volume one). And the worst part is that the author first sets the slashing at an underfunded school, and then at a Yankees game, and manages to squander both opportunities to say anything interesting about education and capitalism or sports fans. There is a vague "corporate schooling is bad" based on the principal's actions, but its otherwise toothless. And the Yankees game slashfest, where most of the bodycount happens, is incredibly dull, and not even visually interesting.
There will presumably be a third volume of this, as The Child Who Knows Something About The Killer hasn't been able to pass on her knowledge about a Very Stupid Weakness that the villain (who seems to be dead) has. But who cares?
tikitoka's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
haveloved's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I had been meaning to get to this as it came out and did not (thanks, pandemic brain) and since I just grabbed the first issue of volume 3 today given Aftershock's financial woes, I figured now was the time. (Also, having watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre the same day, sometimes you just have an unstoppable killer kinda day, you know?)
To repeat Kalan's own inspiration for the series, he wrote a story delivering on what he felt was the lost promise of Jason Takes Manhattan, creating a world where a superhuman killer has started going on killing sprees in New York City and, well... everyone has just gotten used to it. In a world where Maniac Harry sightings are as commonplace as the daily traffic report, task force leader Gina and disgraced detective Zelda work together to try and stop Harry when he sets his sights on killing everyone on New York's first fully automated subway.
I appreciated that every lead character in the story, Harry aside, was a woman, and thankfully I can trust Kalan not to pull a "she breasted boobily" in his writing (Mutti's art is also non-objectifying!). The characters might be a bit stock, but having watched a prototypical slasher film the same day I read this, I can readily accept that as part of the genre trappings. Many before me have remarked on how Kalan nailed the tone of malaise and apathy the world at large developed to crises even before the pandemic (I particularly enjoyed the one well-deployed swipe at a childish president). After the last few years, the cynicism is more than earned.
My one complaint is probably more of a me thing than a bad thing; while the pacing is great, it being such an action-heavy title meant that I often reached the end of each issue so quickly I was like "huh, that's it?" I sometimes wished the story didn't have to hurtle along quite so quickly, and it ends on a huge sequel hook rather than a resolution. But given that the sequel series are already available to me, I intend to read those posthaste and it isn't a huge deal. I really enjoyed this and it also made me more interested in other titles by the publisher, so I think it achieved its goal for sure.
To repeat Kalan's own inspiration for the series, he wrote a story delivering on what he felt was the lost promise of Jason Takes Manhattan, creating a world where a superhuman killer has started going on killing sprees in New York City and, well... everyone has just gotten used to it. In a world where Maniac Harry sightings are as commonplace as the daily traffic report, task force leader Gina and disgraced detective Zelda work together to try and stop Harry when he sets his sights on killing everyone on New York's first fully automated subway.
I appreciated that every lead character in the story, Harry aside, was a woman, and thankfully I can trust Kalan not to pull a "she breasted boobily" in his writing (Mutti's art is also non-objectifying!). The characters might be a bit stock, but having watched a prototypical slasher film the same day I read this, I can readily accept that as part of the genre trappings. Many before me have remarked on how Kalan nailed the tone of malaise and apathy the world at large developed to crises even before the pandemic (I particularly enjoyed the one well-deployed swipe at a childish president). After the last few years, the cynicism is more than earned.
My one complaint is probably more of a me thing than a bad thing; while the pacing is great, it being such an action-heavy title meant that I often reached the end of each issue so quickly I was like "huh, that's it?" I sometimes wished the story didn't have to hurtle along quite so quickly, and it ends on a huge sequel hook rather than a resolution. But given that the sequel series are already available to me, I intend to read those posthaste and it isn't a huge deal. I really enjoyed this and it also made me more interested in other titles by the publisher, so I think it achieved its goal for sure.
v_v_'s review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
spacecaits's review
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5