HEAVY KILL, from Jared Throne, tells a tale of woe as the village of Siro is beset by a series of gruesome murders. Can Myra live up to her father’s legacy and protect the only home she’s ever known?
The Details
- Written By: Jared Throne
- Art By: Jared Throne
- Letters By: Jared Throne
- Cover Art By: Jared Throne
- Cover Price: $15.00 (physical hardcover)
- Release Date: Available now
Was It Good?
HEAVY KILL is a well-constructed story about a village struggling to deal with a threat when its citizens have lived in complacent security for too many years. The main character, Myra, also struggles to understand the history of her warrior father (no longer present) and what her natural urge to act means for her family. At a hefty 250+ pages, there’s plenty of meat to this story, but is it worth the cover price? It depends.
All credit and admiration are due Throne for pulling double duty on writing and art for the entire book. Regardless of the critique, this is a herculean feat for one creator to pull together alone when some indie creators struggle to get out a 22-page floppy. If nothing else, Throne is already a success on that count.
The story is fairly straightforward. A peaceful village experiences a string of increasingly frequent crop destructions and murders. Myra is the character focus of the story, but her part acts within the greater whole of the village. We learn a little about each villager, their attitudes about the deaths, and how those attitudes play into the outcome. In short, Throne puts in solid work building the world and the supporting characters along with the main character.
The way the plot plays out may not appeal to every reader’s sensibilities. The key emotion that comes through repeatedly is frustrating inaction. The village council wants to ensure safety through caution, but their measured caution leads to stymied inaction. Once Myra tells everyone what she’s discovered about the threat, little is done to take her discovery seriously. Once the threat presents itself in broad daylight, the villagers largely fail to defend themselves or, at least, act with common sense. In essence, Siro is a town that set itself up to be slaughtered, and once the threat makes itself known, the villagers practically lay themselves down to die.
The heart of Siro’s troubles begins with the village council and their inability to act in any meaningful way save one. A strange down point of the story involves the early deaths of two boys and the way the council rashly acts to acquire a scapegoat. It’s a down point because the council’s behavior is inconsistent with how they act for the rest of the GN, which is complete inaction. They quickly play judge, jury, and executioner with no investigation or caution early on, and then when the real culprit is revealed, they suddenly don’t know what to do. It’s a strange inconsistency that doesn’t sit right.
The second down point is the climactic last night in the village. The villagers now understand the threat, and they know they either have to fight or at least barricade their homes, yet, you find villagers simply wandering the village at night, alone, inviting slaughter. Living in isolation certainly can lull you into false security, but these villagers lack any form of common sense. In effect, we repeatedly found ourselves thinking, “Good. You deserved to die for being super dumb.” It’s tantamount to shaking your head at the idiot teenager for going into the woods alone in a slasher movie when half the cast is already dead.
The third down point is the out-of-place dialog for the location and time period. A farming village set in the middle ages wouldn’t have people saying phrases like “freaking out”. The vernacular is modern and doesn’t make sense for the setting, frequently pulling you out of the story. This is not as big a down point as the first two, but it presented a frequent distraction.
In fairness, there’s a lot of material in this book, and the character development is impressive. The main plot points play out well, and you get a full, complete story.
The art is serviceable. B&W can be a difficult medium, and one of the hardest parts to master is shading and texture. Without it, every daytime scene looks overexposed and too bright. You get some of that exposure here, and coupled with admittedly amateurish character anatomy, you start to see the lack of artistic technique. It’s not terrible art, but it’s not quite pro-level either.
Before we end the review, we’re always keen to encourage more indie creators to keep going, keep improving, and keep publishing. Again, this is a herculean effort that some indie creators would never approach, so we’ll give Throne all the credit in the world for taking it on.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
We begin with the village of Siro, and a local farmer, Eli, who interrupts a couple of local boys trying to steal his sheep. Eli handles the situation with kindness and generosity, but the boys run away for fear of getting in trouble. Later, the boys are found savagely murdered.
The council hastily acts to mete out justice in the most extreme terms, but several villagers, including Myra, are not sure the threat is over. Later, one villager finds her crops destroyed, yet another finds his livestock missing. Another villager reports his brother missing. As the disappearances and death escalate, Myra feels the pull to act. Meanwhile, the village council does its best to maintain calm and peace while failing to do anything else.
We conclude the book with a woodland discovery, the threat made plain, and a call to arms.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.
Final Thoughts
(Click this link 👇 to order this comic)
HEAVY KILL is a massive story about a village, lulled into peaceful complacency, that struggles to act when a deadly threat makes itself known. The character development is detailed and believable, and the overall plot has plenty to chew on (no pun intended). That said, most character behavior is frustrating to the point of stupidity, and there are some inconsistencies in the council behavior and the dialog.
As an Amazon Associate, we earn revenue from qualifying purchases to help fund this site. Links to Blu-Rays, DVDs, Books, Movies, and more contained in this article are affiliate links. Please consider purchasing if you find something interesting, and thank you for your support.
We hope you found this article interesting. Come back for more reviews, previews, and opinions on comics, and don’t forget to follow us on social media:
If you’re interested in this creator’s works, remember to let your Local Comic Shop know to find more of their work for you. They would appreciate the call, and so would we.
Click here to find your Local Comic Shop: www.ComicShopLocator.com