In THE COURIER: LIBERTY AND DEATH #2, available from Zenescope Entertainment on February 17th, 2021, Eve and her crew take on the Divinity death cult in the wastelands and ravenous primals in a twisted cage match. While Eve is fighting for survival, Gillings makes move to retrieve the drugs Eve failed to deliver – putting him at odds with his sister.
The Details
- Written By: Ralph Tedesco
- Art By: Oliver Borges
- Colors By: Fran Gamboa, J.C. Ruiz
- Letters By: Carlos M. Mangual
- Cover Art By: Igor Vitorino, Ivan Nunes
- Cover Price: $5.99
- Release Date: February 17, 2021
Was It Good?
Yes. Comical Opinions is thrilled to have Zenescope onboard, so we’re eager to get familiar with as many of their titles as possible. The Courier is an interesting mix between the future dystopia of Mad Max and The Walking Dead with a little bit of Judge Dredd’s Mega-City One thrown in for good measure.
The art is high quality from the drawing to the coloring to the lettering, and the story has plenty of action and twists to keep a reader engaged.
If you’d like a peek inside the issue, check out our exclusive THE COURIER: LIBERTY AND DEATH #2 preview.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
Eve and her team are in the middle of a shootout on a deserted highway. Killing a roving pack of primals was bad enough, but a group of Divinity hunters stop by to take advantage. Despite their best efforts, the Courier’s team is captured.
Back at Longview, the residents grieve the loss of their own during a scavenger trip. While they count their losses, a pack of primals begin to sniff around outside the town’s fence.
Up to this point in the story, you get a very distinctive Walking Dead vibe in the positioning of all groups. You have regular citizens trying to survive in a protected compound. You have hungry primals as the series monster roaming around and ready to pounce as soon as the humans let their guard down. And the crazy human cults that may be as bad or worse than the primals.
Consistent with those other properties, The Courier is not afraid of gore. I think I’ve seen more flying eyeballs and splattered brains in this issue than any other in the last year. That’s a positive.
In a nice word-building scene, we cut to a flashback of one of Eve’s earliest interactions with Ava, the then-would-be Chancellor. It was made clear to Eve early on that Ava is a ruthless politician willing to crush anyone who gets in her way.
Back to the present, Eve and her crew are escorted through the Divinity compound to meet the cult’s leader. Mad zealotry has set in, and the crew is condemned to fight for acceptance by surviving in a cage match against a pack of primals. Without spoiling the outcome, the primals aren’t considered extremely dangerous without justification.
Most of the latter half of this beefy 35-page issue is dedicated to the cage match which tells you where the creators are focused in their storytelling. Less talking, more fighting (and killing). In this context, that approach completely works.
We conclude the issue with some tense conversations between Ava and her brother, Gillings, and a glimmer of hope for Eva’s crew with the arrival of a mechanical friend.
Final Thoughts
THE COURIER: LIBERTY AND DEATH #2, successfully mixes apocalyptic and dystopian stories to give readers a unique twist on a familiar trope. The art is solid and not afraid to get gory. And the story keeps a steady, tense pace from start to finish.
Score: 8/10
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