How many folks here have checked out Jonathan Hickman's East of West from Image comics? In typical Hickman fashion it's an alternate history/sci-fi with some horror thrown in. It also is highly entertaining yet 4 issues we're only starting to see how everything fits. He has a talent for making things appear confusing or just giving you just a piece of the story and leave you wanting more.
Here's the plot. Correct me if I'm wrong. There was some space between the time I read issue 1 then issue 2. I just read issues 3 and 4 last night. The overall plot is that the end is nigh. The world is divided, especially the united states. The world leaders are part of a group holding a secret regarding the end of the world. They answer to the Four Horsemen. Only there's just three of them, Death is on his own. I think we haven't seen what exactly transpired but the other three were killed by Death perhaps and are now children still going about their plans just slowly growing. Death is looking for his wife and killing members of this secret group. That's all we know for now.
The art by Nick Dragotta is excellent. It really lends itself to the story. It gives it a vibrant look and still lends to the creepiness of the overall story.
Issue 5 is out today.
So has anyone read this yet?
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I read issue 5 of East of West last night. This seemed to conclude the first arc. Things are starting to come together. Spoilers.
We see that Death and his wife had a son. When Death was away, the other horsemen took the son away. Turns out he's not dead. He's in the custody of the world leaders called the Chosen who are doing the Horsemen's bidding to bring about the end of the world. Thing is the child is being groomed more or less to be the Beast of the Apocalypse. We see that the Chosen and I suppose the Horsemen too, are actually manufacturing the end of the world. We have be lead to believe up till now that things were on a natural course to the end but as we see this group is pushing the end sooner than expected. We see Death ride off in the sunset to rescue his son.
It sounds interesting, I'll have to keep an eye out for a tpb collection.
Issue 5 also showed us that not everyone of the Chosen is on board with the whole "end of the world" bit. Which makes sense, because he spent all of his life trying to get into a great position of power only to try and end the world and himself.
I caught up this past weekend and read issues 6-8. Still a very strong book. The council of the Chosen is falling apart. We get a little backstory on one of the Chosen and his relationship with the horsemen. We are also introduced to a potential new hero, a former Texas ranger. However he only appears in one issue so far.
This is one crazy book. One thing I find really impressive is how much Nick Dragotta has improved as an artist. I remember him way back when he drew for The Losers, and it was good and all, but man. His pictures are gorgeous.
Yeah, his art is great on this title. I wasn't familiar with him before this.