Comic Review: Assassin Nation #5 (of 5)

Assassin Nation #5 (of 5)

Image Comics

Writer: Kyle Starks

Artist: Erica Henderson

I enjoy comic books. That should be obvious since I spend the majority of my time just reading comic books. But there’s only a few that just make me smile from cover to cover while reading them. Assassin Nation is definitely one of those comics. The story and the characters and everything in it are just over the top ridiculous and I love it. This is the final issue, so I’m the tiniest bit bummed out that it’s over, but boy is this a great note to go out on.

Of the top 20 assassins in the world, there’s only five left alive, and two retired former assassins. Bishop, Dave, Fuck Tarkington, and Smoke are storming a building to get at Rankin, the man who set them all up. It’s a comic with enough action to rival any 80s action movie.

It’s a bit hard to talk about this issue more than the brief description of it that I already gave. There’s a lot that happens, but to get into it is crossing the border into spoiler town. What I can say is that the characters are really consistent in their personalities. Both in this issue and the series as a whole. Dave is optimistic and about as wholesome as you can get in the assassin game. Maxwell Bishop just wants to get the guy that killed his husband. Fuck Tarkington is Fuck Tarkington and I love him for it. 

The art is great. I still very strongly associate Erica Henderson with Squirrel Girl. Assassin Nation is very much on the opposite end of the spectrum from that. There are explosions and people getting shot, and violence. I think if you were to combine the violence from all of Squirrel Girl, it wouldn’t be as much as this one issue. And that’s why I like the art here so much. It’s a very cartoon, animation kind of style. I’d call it kid-friendly, really, but the tone of the story sets it up in itself to be part of the joke. An intentional joke, though, that we all laugh along with because we realize how over the top it is.

The story does fall into some tropes that I’m not too fond of. But I think it’s in the spirit of over-the-top action movies this takes inspiration from. Some characters monologue, some stop a fight just to have a dramatic showdown. But it all plays into the tone this series presents us. If you like this comic, I don’t see why you wouldn’t read this issue. If you’ve never read this comic, you owe it to yourself to read the whole series, and then come back to this issue.