Writer: Skottie Young
Artist: Jorge Corona
Colorist: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Letterer: Nate Piekos
Cover Artist: Jorge Corona
Publisher: Image
Price: $5.99
Release Date: May 8, 2024
Ryder slows her horse when she spies a forlorn wagon on the ridge. Is it abandoned? Might it be a trap? She dismounts and discovers a cold firepit. Yet when she plucks a doll from the dirt, a girl appears. Then, the girl's mother steps out and raises her rifle. Can Ryder evade a shot at close range? Let’s saddle up, ride into Aint No Grave #1, and find out!
Story
Ryder made her name by robbing banks, stagecoaches, and trains. But she gave all that up to be a wife and a mother. Then, a disease caught her in its foul grip. She couldn't embrace her husband or play with her daughter without coughing up blood. The doctor was no use. "Take my medicines, and maybe you'll live another year." That wasn't good enough! After promising to return, Ryder abandoned her family to find a cure.
The girl by the wagon reminds Ryder of the daughter she left behind. The frightened mother proves little threat to the experienced gunslinger. Ryder leaves the two in peace and resumes her journey. That night, as she sits before a roaring fire, Ryder’s thoughts return to her family and why she left. A haunting melody wafts through the trees, interrupting her thoughts. Thousands of glowing people walk past like a procession of elves departing Middle Earth. One beckons to her, and she follows them to a river, where a man welcomes them. Should she join them? Should she merge with the water that brought her life?
In Aint No Grave #1, Skottie Young returns us to an age before modern medicine provided targeted remedies to infection and disease. Young shows us a land uncluttered by roads, cities, and technology. This world owes little to science. Myths and legends inform it. People learn from tradition and experience, and beliefs are more important than facts.
Yet the facts are that Ryder is dying. Despite the exciting life she once lived and the notoriety it brought, Ryder found her treasure in Darius and Joey. Perhaps she doesn't know how infections spread. Yet Ryder won’t let the disease take the either. She may be in denial. But she's got a plan. It's a long shot, but it's all she has. And it all starts with booty from her former life, stamped with the symbol of a faraway town.
Art
Ryder looks young and carefree in flashbacks. She plays with her daughter in a grassy field before a wooden house perched at the foot of snowcapped mountains. Her husband works on the fence surrounding their home. Yet soon, she'll ride out the wooden arbor and perhaps never see her husband or daughter again, except in her thoughts and dreams.
Jean-Francois Beaulieu loads a palette with appealing colors in Aint No Grave #1. Beaulieu enhances Jorge Corona’s expressive characters and dramatic landscapes. Set against the red and orange deserts and the verdant green forests, Ryder grows more determined with each passing page. She clutches the coins tightly in her gloves as she passes through portals—her husband's arbor, the skeletal remains of an abandoned house, a sandstone arch, and finally, two trees growing near each other amid a sea of sand.
Jorge Corona and Jean-Francois Beaulieu’s glowing, blue-white people walking through the forest captivate. You can understand their allure as they pass Ryder like sentient, anthropomorphic lanterns. When she awakens by the river, remnants of the dream drift toward the reader as the stream carries them between rocks and a fallen tree.
Nate Piekos works his magic spell in Aint No Grave #1. He casts generously sized black and colored letters into polygonal balloons. Musical notes in boxes waft through the forest the night of the ghostly procession. Her daughter's golden laughter tells you what Ryder’s fighting for, while Piekos’ reddish-brown Coughs remind you what Ryder’s fighting against.
Final Thoughts
Mythology swirls through the Old West in an epic tale of love and a gunslinging wife determined to keep it in Aint No Grave #1.
Rating 10/10
For another cover see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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