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REVIEW: East Of West #45 "The End Of A Very Long Road"

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2019 08:30:30 -0600

(Image Comics, creative team: Jonathan Hickman, Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, Rus Wooten)

This feels like the end of a very long road, as long-awaited reunions occur with sense shocking displays of emotion. There is a distinctive poetry to writer Hickman's take on the axiom, "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" in this title's aggressive negotiations and the striking visuals from Dragotta, Martin and Wooten don't pull any punches in a number of tense confrontations.

What's not to like? Well, this far down the road, there won't be many means for newer readers to jump on the bandwagon without a lot of trade or back issue-based backtracking. In the biggest dance numbers, you'd only know the players from inference. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's a road bump worth noting in assessing this work. Some series have avoided that issue and thrived (Transformers: Lost Light for example) and others ignore it, preaching proudly to the choir (ex: Fables). This was closer to the latter in approach, literally sticking to its guns in forging a new future for a fractured America. This isn't as polarizing a finales as Game of Thrones, Lost or The Rise of Skywalker so you can at least rest easy closing the book on the Message and all who were made to hear it. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.