Nuclear Family #4

Nuclear Family #4

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Stephanie Phillips

Illustrated by Tony Shasteen

Coloured by JD Mettler

Lettered by Troy Peteri

Propelled into an alternate reality where the Cold War turned hot and America has been nuked, the McClean family has been captured by a paranoid military that believe them to be spies. Desperately searching for a way to get home, the McCleans uncover even darker secrets buried in the nuclear bunkers beneath Milwaukee.

This story keeps taking these dramatic and drastic turns that you never expect to see and it’s part of what makes this super interesting. The opening here is phenomenal, though I will say I would’ve liked to have seen this ginger chap fully naked, I mean that hairy chest and that happy trail leading to flesh coloured boxer briefs are a nice touch but if you are going to do what they are doing he shouldn’t have any clothing on so we see the full effect of this physiological rewiring of his body. See how engaged I already am and this is because of what we see and learn before the kids come crashing through the ceiling. When the parents show up all hell breaks loose and I have to say that how this all comes together is extremely well done.

I am pretty impressed with how this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development is amazing thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter is exceeding my expectations. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story as well as the twists & turns along the way we’re now glued to the pages.

I am enjoying seeing the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story are growing, evolving and strengthening. These layers bring us new characters, new discoveries and how they are going to survive provided they actually do. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.

Tony is one of today’s visual master storytellers and more folks need to see his work and understand this because i’m completely and totally impressed time and time again with the level and quality of his work. The linework we see is exquisitely laid down and how the varying weights and techniques we see to bring out the detail work is astounding to see. How we see backgrounds being utilised is brilliantly done and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring us this depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope is beautifully rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the perspective and angles in the panels show such a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is phenomenal! How the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work demonstrates the eye of a master colourist. The right moments pop and how we see the blending is just mindbogglingly good. The creativity and imagination we see is stupendous and these zombie creatures showcase that beautifully.

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With a great cliffhanger ending after an action filled book is the perfect way to close out this issue. There are so many sensational moments that happen throughout this issue that really demonstrate how this family loves each other and now by extension they’ve got Roger who I can see becoming a member of this family unit as well. Now i’m not sure they’ll ever be able to return to their own time so i’m going to assume, even though I know what they say about that, they are here for the long haul and that poses dangers and avenues to explore that are limitless. Stephanie has taken a story she based this off of and turned it into something so much more original than I was expecting to see. This really is a sensational story.