Review: Secrets Spill In ‘Duck And Cover’ #3
by Olly MacNamee
Summary
‘Duck And Cover’ #3 reveals a good deal of secrets surrounding the recent apocalypse-level event that has left all but a handful of people alive. Excitement and exposition fuel this issue giving the readers some much-needed insight, even if it doesn’t offer too much hope to our rag-tag heroes.
Overall
10/10The plot thickens as our oddball heroes continue to make their way in a post-apocalyptic ‘50s America dripping in the tropes of B-Movie sci-fi in Duck and Cover #3. Russian spies, mutated monsters and radioactive wastelands. All projections of the fears of Americans in this post-WWII era.
Coming face-to-face with the school bully made all the more lethal because of his monstrous new form, Del Reeves and his friends seem grossly outnumbered. But, they do manage to escape and in doing is the biggest revelations of the series unfold, courtesy of Willow. A girl who has more than her fair share of secrets to spill. And in doing so gives the readers a look at the origins of this tragedy. It’s a great sci-fi yarn going back some one hundred years and takes in Roswell and the most stealthy of alien invasions. A mix-tape of some of ‘50s sci-fi’s “greatest hits” carefully and cleverly remixed by writer Scott Snyder. A true love letter to the B-movies of yesteryear lovingly crafted together into a rather contemporary tale given its setting some decades earlier.
On hand to illustrate this dare-doing end-of-the-world is Rafael Albuquerque whose attention to period details helps establish the Cold-War era this drama is set in while also including very modern aesthetics when it comes to the sci-fi element included in this series. Marcelo Maiolo’s bright colours likewise effectively suggest an irradiated post-apocalyptic landscape glowing with fallout and culminating in a one-page splash that beautifully homages the film posters of the era. The cooler colours of the gang’s safe house – Willow’s home – contrast the heat of the deadly outside world America has become. With simple cal and white used for the flashback sequences, imagine as a film reel her parents have put together.
Above all else, this series is a fun read. It may be as tense as any comic book on the shelves today, but it also relishes the sillier narrative tropes of sci-fi, albeit delivered with a straight face and all happily accepted by the reader. Trust me, when you discover why the kids hiding under their desks weren’t burnt up like the rest of America, you’ll know exactly what I’m getting at. Fun, thrilling and very self-aware.
Duck and Cover #3 is out now from ComiXology Originals
