Aint No Grave #2 Review

 

Writer: Skottie Young

Artist: Jorge Corona

Colorist: Jean-Francois Beaulieu

Letterer: Nate Piekos

Cover Artist: Jorge Corona

Publisher: Image

Price: $3.99

Release Date: June 12, 2024

 

Ryder's horse refused to pass between the trees on the outskirts of Cypress. So, Ryder left her horse behind and trudged through the desert. She found a wooden shack and a water tower. Ryder gave the guard a coin minted in Cypress. The guard stamped its staff on the ground. A narrow pass opened between the adjacent sandstone hoodoos. Can Ryder reclaim her life now that she has gained entry to Cypress? Let’s saddle up, ride into Aint No Grave #2, and find out!

 

Story

Doc Francis gave Ryder a year to live if she took his treatment. But that’s not good enough for Ryder. So she searched her outlaw loot for a coin from Cypress. Then Ryder left Darius and Joe behind to bargain for her life. And Ryder only knows one sure means of persuasion.

 

While the guard follows her into Cypress, its inhabitants sense something different about her. They gather around. The lawman greets her with his rifle. "It's not your time," he tells her. Well, Ryder knows how to persuade him.

 

Things happen quickly in Aint No Grave #2. Burning wanted posters flutter through the air. They bear Ryder's portrait and the promise of 2 Markers Reward. But that's for her death. Ryder's worth nothing to them alive. So, all the townspeople produce guns, and Ryder doesn't have enough bullets to persuade them like she convinced the lawman. She flees, using a knife until she can reload her revolvers.

 

There’s an enchanting dream logic to Skottie Young’s story. One thing that grows clear is that Ryder has trust issues. Like many of us, she refuses to accept anything she doesn't want. But then, Ryder's life was filled with uncertainties. In the Old West, a gunslinger could be an outlaw one minute and a Sheriff the next. A short stay in jail could suddenly become a lynching. Doc Francis’ traveling medicine show didn’t inspire confidence. The only thing Ryder could count on was her family's love. She's determined to accomplish the impossible to gain a lifetime with Darius and Joey.

 

Art

Ryder passed a defile filled with skulls and bones on her journey between the hoodoos. But in Aint No Grave #2, the citizens of Cypress don’t resemble Aragorn’s glowing Army Of The Dead. The lawman comes closest, with his dry, whitened skin stretched over a gaunt (or skeletal) frame. Others display wrinkles and sagging flesh. Yet, whether their skin is desiccated or filled with boils, tumors, or sores, or their bodies have swollen with excess weight, the townspeople attack with manic energy. Their actions make it clear they want those markers. The lawman said Ryder wasn't ready to board a train. Was he referring to the ones that rumble through Cypress or those that chug across the river outside town? His statement awakens a memory of a shootout with a lawman during her career as an outlaw.

 

Jean-Francois Beaulieu lavishes a loaded palette of rich colors on Jorge Corona’s art in Aint No Grave #2. Like the Rocinha favela in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk, Ryder runs and fights through a town that fills the chasm and climbs toward the black sun. Vivid coloring paints the vertically evolving town's neverending nightlife. Background colors change amid a stream of slow-motion silhouettes that reveal every moment of Ryder's frantic journey. Like Cypress, those who carry responsibility do so literally. The guard was so laden with belongings that it resembled a brown hill of dried grasses. The gaunt sheriff, dressed in white to compliment his desiccated frame, carried weapons, ammunition, and badges of authority. Ryder meets another person who bears the weight of his responsibilities on his shoulders. Adorned in brown and lavender, he inhabits purple shade. But what he gives her, like the sky overhead and the river outside town, has glowing blood-red eyes.

 

Like Stan Sakai in Usagi Yojimbo, Nate Piekos shoots generously sized black letters into polygonal balloons. Emotion and raised voices swell words and change color. Gunfire blasts through panels more vibrantly than Beaulieu’s yellow lines of speeding bullets, and a colorful sign pays homage to a Western filmmaker. Purple laughter greets Ryder's assertion that she will triumph where all others have failed in Aint No Grave #2. Thanks to Image for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

While Ryder bought her way into Cypress, she won't find her enemy there. But her actions give others a means of repaying their debts in the mythological Spaghetti Western tale Aint No Grave #2.

 

Rating 9.4/10

 

For another cover see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.