“Two FBI agents walk into a warehouse” is the setup for A Walk Through Hell, a new horror comic from AfterShock Comics, written by Garth Ennis, that debuted this week.
A Walk Through Hell 1
Written by Garth Ennis
Pencils and Inks by Goran Sudžuka
Colors by Ive Svorcina
I’m always interested in a new Garth Ennis story, as he’s written some of my favorite comic books (PREACHER, THE BOYS) over the last 25 years or so. With a light week for comics, the first issue of A WALK THROUGH HELL came out at the perfect time to pick me up as a new reader.
The opening chapter here sets the stage for the horrors to come, with FBI agents Shaw and McGregor responding to a situation at a warehouse in Long Beach, California after two other agents went in and never came out. The local police responded, made it two feet inside the warehouse and turned around. Once Shaw and McGregor arrived at the warehouse and made their way in, the officers who couldn’t manage to breach the warehouse find their own grizzly end.
What I wasn’t at all prepared for when I opened up the first page of A WALK THROUGH HELL was the art. Goran Sudžuka is a brilliant artist, who’s had great stints on VERTIGO books like Y THE LAST MAN and HELLBLAZER. His work on this book is fantastic, with expressive panels all the way through. The art truly enhanced the story here in the way art should. It took me off guard, though, because for something labeled as “horror,” the panels in the opening pages were so clean and kind of bright. As I continued to turn the page, though, everything began to mesh, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what Sudžuka brings to the table in future issues, as things get worse.
Ennis, of course, keeps the reader engaged all through the first chapter of this new story, dropping bits of information about where this is all headed from page 1 all the way to the end. He opens the issue with a scene at a mall, a man talking to a woman carrying a baby as we approach Christmas. The woman and the baby wind up getting shot and killed. Later, Ennis offers a bit of commentary on how social media reacts to tragedies like this one.
He really just nails how all over the place reactions can be on Twitter.
I picked up A WALK THROUGH HELL on a whim, but it may end up being my favorite book of the week. I’m looking forward to where the story goes from here.