Last of the Irin #2
Writer: Rob McMillan
Art: Laura R. Peinado
The second volume of Last of the Irin is out! This issue continues the elaborated story of a family feud that extends through millennia and has now reached the half-human half-Canaanite Anahita, who’s on a journey to discover the truth about what happened to Marduk, the son of Baal. This issue presents a different artwork from issue #1 and a new kind of storytelling, much more linear and concise.
We last saw Anahita as she conquered her freedom after spending her childhood constantly sick in the belief that she had a rare health condition. In fact, Anahita needed to consume animal blood to survive and live normally due to her ancestry. Now, Anahita has grown strong and we pick up with her trying to escape a facility that holds the body of a family member: Marduk, son of Baal. Why is Anahita breaking into this facility? At the same time, Baal’s nephew, Sarosh, is on Earth as Satan’s replacement. He has allied himself with other family members aiming to intercept and capture Anahita, the last descendant of Yahweh. Anahita commandeers a van on the street so she can transport Marduk’s remains safely and meet her allies, however, the van belongs to Tom, a conspiracy theorist and sci-fi fanatic who happened to be close by at the moment of Anahita’s escape.
The storytelling, as I mentioned above, goes in a different direction than the first issue. It is almost strictly linear, more action-driven, and less expositional, which gives the whole chapter a very different tone from the first one. This made for an interesting read since there’s a lot of exciting developments going on and with little exposition, we get just enough to entice the reader’s curiosity. That being said, it does get very confusing until the end of the issue where much of what has happened is recollected, now with its reasons. McMillan displays in this second issue, as he did in the first one, a clear plot he desires to lay out for us readers, but maybe he’s not doing it in the best manner. The second volume was a lot better than the first, that’s without a doubt, but I fail to see why the story can’t be told in a more straightforward approach. Anahita remains a well written strong female character, which is rare even in current days.
The artwork in this issue is by Laura R. Peinado and it is a great improvement from the artwork in issue #1. In the previous volume what bothered me about the artwork was that sometimes the characters just looked like weirdly rendered 3D models of what they should be. In this issue, however, Peinado manages to maintain a lot of the style of issue #1 whilst showing great mastery of lights and shadows as well as colors in general, in order to eliminate the problem. Other than that the artist also draws very precise facial expressions bringing McMillan’s dialogue to life powerfully.
As it’s probably become clear by now, this issue is a great improvement from the first one. Not without its flaws, but undoubtedly better. We’re one chapter away of seeing the end of Anahita’s journey and I hope it only gets better and we get a nice conclusion to her story and to all of the weird tech mysticism in the Last of the Irin.
