The Underworld Railroad written by Jason M. Burns, illustrated by Paul Tucker
Viper Comics, $11.95, ~96pp, tp, 9780979368035. Graphic novel.
Warning: this review contains some spoilers.
I’m a new reader of graphic novels, so I may seem a bit naive, but I found this one interesting. The story held my interest all the way to the end, although I wasn’t truly surprised. The art, however, I’m not sure of. The mechanics of the representations are good enough, but the limited color pallet made the art seem to fade into the background, rather than standing out far enough to be an equal story-telling partner with the words.
The story started out somewhat confusing, with too many flashbacks in too few pages to serve the story well. But once things got moving, the author dropped the flashback nonsense and the story rolled along. Set in nearly present day New Hampshire, this is an episode of events from “The Underworld Railroad” (like the Underground Railroad, which helped escaped slaves to freedom, but this one has been running much longer, and helps souls in limbo find their way to heaven, rather than hell).
Paul Kemp has recently died in prison, serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. But he wasn’t good enough to go straight to heaven. Instead, he’s being followed by the Devil, who wants to grab his soul for Hell. He stumbles into the station manned by Bruce Boyd, widower and heir to his position. Well, the Devil’s really hot for this one (and she’s hot to look at, too; yes, the Devil is female [seems to be a theme, with our recent review of The Four Redheads of the Apocalypse, but it wasn’t planned]). The Devil can’t come into Bruce’s house, because God has blessed it, but she’s not about to let that stop her. Bruce makes the mistake of taunting her, and now he’s in trouble, so he calls for help. His motley crew of three friends combine their skills and powers to fight off the Devil, but she isn’t so easily dissuaded, and when Bruce’s minister-friend’s prayers are answered, it looks like the Apocalypse right here in New England.
Well, you may have noticed that the planet is still rotating, and we’re still alive, so our heroes do find their way out of the army of zombies, the avenging angel’s almost-wrought vengeance, and the terror of a damned eternity.
I could have done with different art work, but I’m not displeased with this one.