Comic Review: Middlewest #2

Middlewest #2

Image Comics

Writer: Skottie Young

Artists: Jorge Corona & Jean-Francois Beaulieu

Middlewest #1 was one of my favorite debuts of the year, and easily the best issue by Skottie Young that I’ve read so far. The issue featured a wonderful setting full of magic and danger, combined with the perfect marriage of inking and coloring. With such a wonderful start, how does Abel’s second chapter compare?

While the first issue focused on building the characters, Middlewest #2 focuses on worldbuilding. Following an unexplainable disaster, Able and the fox are stuck in what seems to be a new world full of danger. After narrowly evading a frantic situation, the pair runs into Jeb, an old wizard who decides to take care of them.

Jeb’s home highlights what makes the series’ setting so easy to connect to. It is full of familiar sights but has a sense of magic attached to it all, like a Ghibli film. Strange trains, anthropomorphic creatures, and a treehouse made of automobiles all captivate. Jeb is a cliche but serves as an appropriate device to set the pair off on their journey. Fortunately, Young manages to inject a little life into the old wizard, establishing an interesting but mysterious history for the character.

Jorge Corona and Jean-Francois Beaulieu continue to make Middlewest look enchanting. Every design is spectacular, from the foes that the pair runs into at the beginning of the issue to Jed’s home. The issue is well written, but the art is truly the achievement of the series so far. Beaulieu’s colors are simply the best that I’ve seen this year and injects a significant amount of life into each and every panel.

If this issue suffers anywhere, it’s in the pacing. The timing of each event in Middlewest #2 feels a little off, and I can’t quite place how. The storytelling feels just a touch choppy throughout. The final page of the issue, while funny, is somewhat an unsatisfying conclusion that left me disgruntled that the issue ended there. Still. it’s not necessarily an awful thing, and there is something to be said about an issue that doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.

Middlewest #2 continues to shine in most of the same ways as the debut. Young and company have already created a marvelous world that readers will want to fall into. The pacing is a little rough, but this is easy to forgive with how great everything else is.