Miles To Go

Miles To Go #5

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by B. Clay Moore

Illustrated by Stephen Molnar

Lettered by Dave Sharpe

Revelations about the true nature of Amara Bishop and her daughter lead them into a frightening new chapter of their lives, and "retired" killer Moses Graves must decide if he'll follow them past the point of no return.

I don’t know about you but there are those creators who I follow regardless of what book they are working on. B. Clay Moore is one of those creators for me and ever since I read the first issue of Hawaiian Dick I knew he was a special talent. This story has reinforced this for me as well. We are at the end of the first, I said first, so I hope this doesn’t make a porkie out of me, the arc of this series and it’s like someone threw a grenade into your lap, it’s just that explosive. With what we learn here and whom we meet this really sets things up for what’s to come next. This just rocked my world in ways I wasn’t prepared for and that’s the truth. This series has been seemingly running since day one and while it has to be exhausting to be constantly on the run things are just now heating up to a point it is either run or set up the mother of all confrontations.

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exquisitely. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter. The ever changing and growing characterisation through the events they experience is portrayed spectacularly well. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story the revelations are jaw dropping.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen are magnificently rendered. I love how we see the layers opening up the avenues for the first time or expanding the ones that are already there and whether they work with the main arc or not they all add this amazing depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are absolutely perfectly suited to the story. The linework and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work that’s featured throughout the book creates this style that embodies the mood, tone and feel that we need for each and every moment. The way that backgrounds are utilised are thoughtfully rendered, we could see more I wouldn’t mind, as they enhance and expand the moments. They also do well with how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. How we see the utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show some solid skill and talent with some equally bold choices.

We knew Amara was trained by her father but we never questioned how she took to this as well as she had. Now we know why and what’s better or worse is that there’s a chance that Alea can be the same type of person her mother is. We’ve already seen Alea taking on traits that make Amara such a good hitwoman and that she’s unusually calm under all this pressure so who knows what her future will be but that should be up to Amara.

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This has some of the most amazing writing and intriguing characterisation that’s brought to life with these highly stylised interiors that just captures the readers’ imagination and runs wild afterwards.