Issue #1 Recap
- The main character is a schizophrenic pharmaceutical sales rep who, at a young age, witnessed her father’s death while reading her favorite book, Slavic Folklore.
- Various tales from Slavic Folklore seem to come to life for the main character while tracking her father’s killer.
- The first lead on her father’s killer takes her to an apartment owned by an old man named Shubin, who turns out to be a retired assassin trained by the state. He claims he did not kill her father, but provides her with information on where other retired assassins hang out.
- Shubin unsuccessfully tries killing her with gas (his preferred weapon) but in the end, she ends up killing him.
Issue #2 Spoilers/Review
We start with the main character (still no name) reminiscing about her father’s murder while shoving a handful of pills into her mouth. She then starts hallucinating and sees characters from her favorite book again (two giants walking across the road). Her hallucinations cause her to have to pull over. The radio in the background is reporting about new victims of the roadside strangler (not sure where this is going). We are then taken to a parking lot of a gas station where a creepy guy wants whatever she is taking. This is a strange scene that I will cover later.
We then jump to the assassin’s bar. Inside the bar, she asks for the Morozko brothers. We have to assume these names were given to her by Shubin (hole in the story). In the back room of the bar, she meets with the brothers, who assume she is from the state agency, and that she is there to kill them. They board the door, but she escapes through the window (seems like they would have had that boarded too?). A chase outside leads to the nearby forest. Because of the cold, it reminds our main character of a story in her favorite book about a woodsman plagued by frost demons. He overcomes the demons by working harder and moving more so she decides to get over the cold she just needs to keep going (this is one of the folktales that seemed forced).
She surprise attacks the brothers and kills one. The other wants to know how she found them and we find out that she got records from the police (not much info given here). The brother tells her that as assassins of the state, they killed hundreds of people but they did not kill her dad (not sure how he remembers that). She then pops out of nowhere in an almost mythical form, vanishes then pops out of nowhere and kills him. She then heads back to the bar where all of the other assassins are waiting for her.
Thoughts
- Matt Lesniewski’s artwork is amazing and is what makes this comic worth checking out. His style of drawing is very different from the comic styles I normally see. I love the design of the Morozko brothers, especially the one wearing the fur coat. These details are what will make me come back to check out the next issue.
- As for the story, there are just too many things that leave me wondering why they were included. The best example is the whole page devoted to the gas station parking lot where a random character walks over to her car and asks if she has any of whatever she is on. It’s a rather creepy scene since the character refers to her as a “little mouse”.
- I am left wondering if our main character is a trained assassin or if the retired assassins in this story are just bad at their job. So far she has dealt with three and has been able to kill all three without much effort.
- The story just seems to be about a female character trying to avenge her father’s death with a few Russian folktales mixed in along the way. Most of the folktales seem to be forced into the story. I will check out the next issue, but right now, it’s just to see those amazing characters Matt Lesniewski is drawing.
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