Advance Review — ‘News From The Fallout’ #2 Slips After Stellar First Issue
by Tom Smithyman
It was bound to happen. After a stellar first issue, News From the Fallout #2 comes crashing back to earth.
The story – essentially a 1950s’ zombie tale set off after an atomic bomb test – is much more compact in this chapter. Yes, writer Chris Condon is great at dialogue (and plotting, and suspense, and…), but this time out, the story is just too small. Sure we get a bit of backstory, but frankly, it gets in the way of the larger narrative.
Most of the action takes place in a Nevada greasy spoon, not far from where the bomb test went awry (or was it a mistake at all?) last issue. There is some amusing back and forth among the diner’s customers and staff and the surviving soldier trying to warn them about the mutated creatures, but not nearly enough to carry the vast majority of the issue.
That’s bad enough. What’s downright criminal is that artist Jeffrey Alan Love doesn’t have nearly enough to draw here. Making matters even worse is Love’s silhouette style makes these characters we’ve never met practically indistinguishable from each other. Yes, by the end Love gives us a lot more of what we want to see – creatures and a great death’s head. But it’s too little too late. Those precious few pages are an stark reminder of what made the premiere issue so great – and what is missing here. It’s like rubbing salt in an old wound.
The limited series is six issues, so the team was bound to have a sub-par outing sooner or later. But this is it. Expectations are only heightened for the rest of the run, or what started out as so exciting will have been nothing more than a tease.
News from the Fallout #2 will be available in comic book stores and digital platforms Wednesday from Image Comics.
Overview
Oh how the mighty have fallen! After an incredibly premiere issue, this series suffers a baffling sophomore slump. Instead of telling the story of zombies spawned by an atomic bomb test, the story contracts to tell a silly tale set inside a diner with the monster on the way. This is not the kind of fallout we were looking for.