The Last Siege #1 –
Image Comics
Written by Landry Q. Walker
Art by Justin Greenwood
Colors by Eric Jones
Letters by Patrick Brosseau
Designed by Keith Wood
If you’re a regular reader of these reviews (or listener to the podcast), you know that I am a sucker for a couple of storylines in particular. One is a good western, and the other is a good medieval story in a land of swords and kings. So, naturally, combining those two things seems like a no-brainer to me. When I read the premise for The Last Siege from Image Comics, I jumped at the chance to give this a read.
This story doesn’t necessarily follow one character in particular, but a kingdom that is now being ruled by a cruel king. In this story, we find ourselves in a free territory who’s ruler has just fallen and left a sole heir. She is very young, and confidence in her is quite low. As a few (who claim to be looking out for her) try to decide her fate, a mysterious stranger shows up. When someone has an agenda, the last thing they want is an outsider. The middle and latter part of this book features some fairly intense action sequences, mixed with meaningful dialog as it pertains to the story going forward into the next issue. What we are left with is a revelation that pretty much makes up everyone’s mind for them in a way.
This book is billed as spaghetti western meets Game of Thrones by Image. I can certainly see why they would say that, given that is has pretty strong elements of both (especially in the early seasons of Game of Thrones.) The first few pages let the art tell the story, and I felt like that was a nice way to set the tone of what was to come. The only problem I found as I was reading was that I simply did not have enough character background on the people in this territory. Sure I felt bad for the 11 year old girl, no I didn’t want to see a hostile takeover of innocent people, but I feel like giving me that sense of loss of their Lord in the first couple of pages may have made all of the difference in how invested I was. I do feel like the western vibe was spot on, and given the unique setting for such a story, I am definitely intrigued. There’s enough here for me to keep going, and given just a bit more depth, I could certainly see this book being a part of a weekly pull. But for now…
RATING: PICK UP