Written by Scott Reichert, Art by Bonkz Seriosa, Colors by Robert Reichert
Time for another comic review, this one from Indigo Comics. Zachariah Thorn is a supernatural/horror comic centered around the title character, a young man who inadvertently unleashed all kinds of dark mystical forces on the world and takes on the mission of ridding the world of them after finding out he’s the descendant of an ancient mystic. There’s a lot of supernatural stuff going on here, along the lines of a Constantine or Justice League Dark book. Zach is assisted in this issue by Elijah Merric, an undead friend who was killed in a car accident but was brought back by Zach, and a young woman names Maria Flores. The issue takes place 10 years after Zach’s mission began.
The issue starts off with Zach having a series of nightmares before he’s interrupted another friend, Stanislav, and then finally Elijah. Elijah’s come to bring Zach home from Bulgaria. On the train, and then flight home Elijah fills Zach in what’s been going on with the rest of their friends. They’re picked up at the airport by Maria, and she takes them to her place to talk about the nightmares her daughter has been having. When they go up to talk to the little girl, she’s gone. Zach looks at a drawing the little girl made and sees what he needs to find her. Zach goes off, and is followed by Elijah, Maria and her husband AJ. As the issue comes to a head Zach finds some really nasty looking demons and the quartet does battle.
So what did I think? I liked it. The artwork was good and the dialogue was right to the point. I haven’t read any of the previous volumes of this series before so I didn’t know exactly what was going on at the very beginning but they didn’t dwell on past events so much that you couldn’t understand what was going on with this one. The story was very easy to follow; there weren’t any tangents or subplots to distract you and they didn’t go down any rabbit holes. And they brought in each character in such a fashion that you could just jump in with them at this point without needing to read any back issues. I bring all this up because the disadvantage with indie comics is that you don’t know the characters, so if you don’t feel like you can just jump in and go from wherever you start, there’s a real temptation to bail early and not come back. I never felt that urge here.
The other thing I liked was that, at least with this issue, they didn’t go crazy with blood and guts. If you’re not into that (I’m not), then books that deal with the macabre can chase you away really quick by doing too much of that. A good story can get the point across without going there. The only thing I had issue with was that there wasn’t real explanation how Zach and the gang were able to figure out how to find the missing girl. Did he use his mystic abilities, was it some kind of quick thinking detective work, or something else? But that’s really it. If you’re looking outside of Marvel and DC for something to check out, this is a good place to start.
You can check it out here.
Stroke of Genius 