The Secret Land #2

The Secret Land #2

Dark Horse Comics 2021

Written by Christofer Emgård

Illustrated by Tomás Aira

Lettered by Mauro Mantella

The war is over, Katherine is dead, and Ben is trying to move on. But then the Navy receives a message from her. At a base in Antarctica, the Third Reich is plotting its return, powered by strange and foreboding technology. Katherine is there, and Ben is coming to get her.

This is a strange little book and I have to say that its quite the coup that Dark Horse managed to get and keep these creators. They are some of today’s most creative and outside the box thinkers when it comes to their work and I have to say that for me it’s the weirder the better! The concept of this is phenomenal and it makes sense to boot and we all know that the Third Reich was into, fascinated by and chased down paranormal objects in the hopes it would help them win the war. In this regard the story has a great sense of realism to it and the whole “what if” of the idea being true is as solid as it gets. Seeing this aircraft in action makes you think a window to the future was opened and that they’ve been able to gain intelligence and the knowledge to create technology that shouldn’t exist here.

I am thoroughly enjoying 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 exceptionally well. The character development we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter do wonders in fleshing them out as people even under these extremely trying situations. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story we get caught up in this beautifully.

I really like how this is being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen while new ones emerge. The characterisation, Ben’s discovery and so much more happen within these layers and while not all impact the main arc they all add 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 achieved perfectly.

The interiors here are beautifully rendered. The linework is strong, clean and crisp and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the detail work shows precision workmanship. Those plants for example are absolutely stunning! The way that we see backgrounds being utilised are brilliantly rendered and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring about the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is marvellous to 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 colour work is also brilliantly rendered. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a real understanding of how to make colour work to its maximum affect.

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The last two pages leave us with one heck of a cliffhanger ending. The Die Glocke has been activated and what this means for those on this base is something we’ll have to wait for the next issue to come out but in the meantime it’s left to the readers own imagination and creativity to fill in the blanks. This is a powerful tool, the readers own mind, and it’s one where these guys have been able to harness the engagement of the reader in some truly wonderful ways. With some bloody good writing and dynamic and interesting interiors this shows us why this creative team works so well together.