Escape #4 // Review
Milton wakes-up in a strange bed. Doesn’t remember going to sleep in it. Light is streaming-in from the outside through wooden slats. His mind floods while he’s trying to work out where the hell he is. He’s been bandaged. Whoever brought him to this place wants him alive. If they were the secret police he’d already be dead or in a gulag somewhere. He’s been bandaged and he’s in bed. And he’s in Escape #4. Writer Rick Remender continues his WWII analog war drama with artist Daniel Acuña. A taught war drama is delivered with added emotional effect by anthropomorphized animal imagery.
There’s a kid sneaking around. Milton scares the hell out of him, but it’s not like Milton isn’t spooked to begin with. Things settle-down when the boy’s father arrives. Of course...it’s a bit of a tense meeting at first. Milton’s got a knife to the guy’s throat. The man he’s threatening speaks reason to him. Lets him know that though he’s in enemy territory, they’re not ALL party members.There are those within the country that don’t like the regime. Still--they can’t afford to be harboring the enemy for long. He’s going to have to leave soon...
Remender does a strikingly clever job of delivering an entire WWII-era encounter that fits perfectly between two covers of a single issue. It’s quite an accomplishment gfiven the fact that he’s not tryin to over-render the moment in dialogue or narration. There are a lot of silent moments that take place throughout the issue. THere’s a lot of weight carried in the silences that articulate well with the mystery of what Milton’s dealing with amongst strangers in enemy territory. Remender allows just enough dialogue to filter on the page to fully deliver a brief encounter during wartime between strangers.
Acuña is doing as much with light ,shadow and empty space in the art as Remender is doing with silence in the script. There’s a quiet immensity about the world that Milton has found himself in. There’s a taut mystery about it all that feels deeply engrossing in its own way as the story proceeds to shuffle its way dramatically from beginning to end. To his credit, Acuña isn’t trying to go crazy with the details that he could be throwing in and aroundthe edges of the panel. There’s a lot of space for the drama to resonate on the panel whether it be on the faces of the characters or in the spaces between them.
And ther’es a bit more about the inspiration behind the story that Remender writes into the end of the issue. It’s a bit of detail about Remender’s grandfather who served in WWII. It’s a nice endnote to a very well-executed single chapter of a larger serial. Remender and company have something special going with Escape. With any luck they’ll be able to hold onto the kind of energy that they’ve developed i this issue and carry it through in the future.
