Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta have re-teamed after their excellent Sentient graphic novel – now we’re onto a new kind of dread with Phantom Road. The second issue is out this week, which offers some much-needed answers. Those answers may plunge the characters and the reader into far more haunting despair and delicious confusion. There’s a science fiction and fantasy mystery afoot here, and it might be the creepiest comics story you read all year.
This issue picks up with one of our two main characters writhing in pain, trying to crawl away from something or being dragged back toward something. Smash cut to where we left off as she and a trucker drive on the road with absolutely nothing around them. We’re talking literal blankness worse than the desert. They’ve encountered strange groaning alien-looking entities, and now they’re driving because they have no other options.
It’s not until this issue we get their names, and more than that is delivered. While the first issue could feel frustrating since it held the reader back from any idea of what is going on, this issue resolves that with tons of hints at what is going on. Through a mysterious character in a diner, Lemire answers a few questions and sticks a needle in a few others. We still don’t know what is going on — and yes, it’s frustrating in stories when characters don’t just come out and say what is happening — but there’s enough here to wet your whistle.
They’re in a bad place.
Credit: Image
The only gripe I have with this issue, save for that mysterious man not telling them everything, is how little we know about these characters. Lemire and Walta definitely give us some info early on, but the majority of the issue keeps us in the dark. They’re mostly reacting to things, so it’s tough to connect with them in a real way.
Gabriel H. Walta’s art, paired with Jordie Bellaire’s colors, continues to be a highlight. There’s a subdued quality to the art that puts this strange blank world into a dreamlike and odd state. Walta adds a sense of grit with details in the wall and ground as if this world is decaying. The creatures are haunting partly because they don’t necessarily seem intentional in scaring or hurting our characters. This helps create a sense of despair in them and our characters when they beat them to a pulp. A reveal later in this issue further cements that element.
While the first issue of Phantom Road offers an intriguing mystery to unpack straight out of the Twilight Zone, the second issue sets up a story where our protagonists are on the run and may be in the wrong. You’ll start questioning if it’s all in their head, making the road ahead all the more dangerous. Weird, unnerving, and sometimes haunting, Phantom Road is another unique hit from Lemire and Walta.
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