Advance Review: ‘TerrorWar’ #8 Means Well But Ultimately Misses The Mark

Imagine your worst nightmare. Maybe it’s going broke or a family member’s death or being spurned by a lover. Now imagine being able to turn that situation around and finding sudden wealth or curing a relative’s disease or reuniting with a loved one.

There’s incredible power in transforming a challenge into an opportunity, which is one of the central themes in TerrorWar #8. The problem is that the story just isn’t all that great and gets even more preachy than in the past.

Muhammad Cho and his band of Terror fighters have finally gotten to the bottom of why these mysterious creatures are terrorizing Blue City. It turns out that administrators have been mining their home to power the city. To drive the great point home even further, writer Saladin Ahmed creates a class war behind the upper and lower sections of the city. So the Terrors aren’t really the villains they seem.

With their reliance on superhuman heroes and out-of-this-world adventures, comics are a great medium for allegories. But they have to be presented in a clever, compelling way. TerrorWar is neither of those. The series started off strong but became bloated and then…woke. Being compassionate toward others is great – and we certainly need more if that in our real world. But pulling it off as entertainment is a difficult task, and it simply doesn’t work well here. It doesn’t help that much of the dialogue is so stilted that it’s painful to read.

On the positive side, penciler Dave Acosta and inker Jay Leisten have lots to do in this issue, depicting a rescue, a chase scene, and some fantasies. They are able to let their imaginations run wild, with some success. But even those illustrations are inconsistent. Some pages are incredibly detailed while others lack believable facial features.

The limited series was extended to include a ninth issue – it could easily have wrapped in six – so there’s one more chance for the series to turn its own challenges into an opportunity for a strong close.

TerrorWar #8 will be available for purchase on December 27, 2023.