Escape #7 // Review
The Lieutenant Colonel is talking to his son. His son happens to be a major serving under him. They’re staring at a breach in the South wall. They found a casing at the breach a single brick of C4. But there’s been no assault. There’s clearly something coming, but they don’t know what it is. Clearly the enemies have been badly underestimated. They’re going to have to do something in Escape #7. Writer Rick Remender continues his WWII-analog drama with artist Daniel Acuña. The war drama continues to engage in interesting ways as the series continues to its inevitable climax.
Milton Shaw is entering in the uniform of the enemy. They will come to know him as a Saba tour. He's in way over his head. There's no way he could possibly survive. But he's got a mission to do and he's going to do it. Things never really go as planned, though. And there's a good chance that he might not make it out of the facility alive. He's got his training. He's got equipment. It's just a matter of finding the right path out of total disaster. And hopefully we can visit some of that disaster on the enemy.
Remender has a sharp eye towards pacing in this issue. Once Shaw really dives into the action, his internal monologue gets very short, concise and staccato. This is actually very cool. All too often action sequences in comic books feature long and drawn out internal monologues. It's nice to see one that really shows the way the mind works under extreme stress and the threat of death. Shows thoughts shorten. And he's just thinking about the next moment. It's actually very cool to see it. Play out like that. It's so very rare that action sequences in comic books. Go for this kind of clarity with respect to that.
Acuña is allowed to let the action really flow across the page. There are striking moments of clarity in the action. Lots of very still shots that seem to suggest some very powerful motion shooting across the page. It all feels so strikingly immediate. And the sense of urgency that propels everything across the page feels very strikingly clear. It's all very well executed. The fully painted artwork has a strong sense of death and atmosphere about it as Shaw works his way behind enemy lines. It's impressive stuff.
And thus begins a new plot arc for the series. It's remarkable how tight the series has been. Remender isn't allowing things to barrel across the page with a great degree of speed. The basic plot elements are slowly marched across the series. This allows a single series of days to play out with a great degree of detail in and around the edges of every single scene. All too often in the course of history war comic books have handled long campaigns in a way that feels like an overview rather than along, and agonizing marched through the trenches. Escape attempts to view war through the long, slow march of impending doom. It’s powerful stuff.
