Destiny, NY #2

Destiny, NY 2

Black Mask Studios 2021

Written by Pat Shand

Illustrated by Manuel Preitano

Lettered by Jim Campbell

After meeting the mysterious Lilith, former prophecy girl Logan McBride's life is thrown into turmoil when her ex (and now, rising MMA star and former prophecy girl herself) Bailey comes back into town.

Also, Gia is hanging out with Lilith... you know, the woman she's destined to kill. Basically, everything is going well.

Pat is one of those writers who has a way with his characters and being able to put them in situations that are relatable to. Logan seeing her ex right after meeting Lilith and all those emotions that come flooding back are universal in how they are perceived by almost everyone. I love the opening here and it does precisely what it is supposed to do, it grabs the readers attention and leaves them with the desire to know more. Ms. Aberdine and that page where she’s sitting there is beyond a shadow of a doubt one of those moments that hits you and kind of makes your eyes widen a bit with sheer speculation of what could possibly be happening.

The way that this is being told is incredibly well done. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The nuggets of information and how all these moving parts are working towards each other and yet completely miss each other is simply stunning work. The character development that we see is phenomenal. Aside the dialogue, which in and of itself is amazing, it’s really how the characters act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter that really showcase the kind of folks they are. Bailey really got nervous and she can talk a good game but honestly killing someone is something else entirely. The pacing is great and as it takes through the pages revealing more and more of the story there are moments that make us cheer and those that make us question and all in all it’s perfectly compiled.

I really like the way that this is being structured and how we see the layers within the story continuing to strengthen, evolve and emerge in new ways. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as to move the story forward is achieved extremely well.

The interiors here are really rather gorgeous. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to up the ante on the detail work that we see is extraordinary. Black & white is such an unforgiving medium and to see it being mastered like this is sensational. That we see backgrounds is great, it’d be even greater to see more but what’s done is done and the ones we do see are stupendous. That we see such good depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story is extremely nice to see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such an amazing eye for storytelling.

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The dynamic of this book and how the characters meet each other or know each other and how the jumbled mess of what’s going to happen when worlds collide is going to be spectacular. We see the beginnings of how personalities are changing and how self confidence is either growing or being shaken and its only the second issue so that we see so much happening already is simply amazing work. I know Pat self-published this a while ago and that it still holds up incredibly well now and will hold up for the foreseeable future is a testament to the quality of work within these pages.