Comic Review: The Goddammed: The Virgin Brides #2

The Goddammed: The Virgin Brides #2

Image Comics

Writer: Jason Aaron

Artists: R.M. Guera & Giulia Brusco

This month sees the release of the second issue in Jason Aaron’s “The Goddammed: The Virgin Brides”. Last issue we were introduced to the nunnery, a group of religious worshippers. Their role was to prepare young women to be wed to mysterious beings once the children experienced their first period. Two of the children, Sharri and Jael were suspicious though, and investigated the mountain the girls were being taken to. After discovering all was not as it seemed, Sharri and Jael plotted to escape the nunnery. Let’s see how it goes.

Throughout this new issue, we get some interesting new developments in Aaron’s story. We get to see how Sharri and Jael first met as well as their attempt to escape from the nunnery. As the story goes on we get to see why there have been no males in the story so far. We also see signs of hostility between the nuns and the high ladies, who take the children up the mountain. These high ladies also act as hunters whenever a child escapes the nuns. Due to this, most of the issue features Sharri and Jael trying to evade the high ladies tracking them.

It’s a well-written issue and we get to see more of the personalities of our protagonists. The opening flashback lets us see the kinder side of Sharri. Meanwhile, as the girls are being hunted later in the issue we see the violent aspects of Jael’s character. Aaron develops a nice contrast between the heroines of his story through this. It leaves you wondering how this difference in temperament will affect their friendship as the story goes on. There are also some signs of how being raised in the nunnery has conditioned these girls to believe in the religion. This is something that you often see in children raised in religious households so it’s nice to see it here. I feel that including themes such as this adds more realism to Aaron’s tale and makes his characters more relatable.

The art continues to be fantastic. I’d praised the previous issue for its artwork during the horror and fantasy-like sequences, this issue is a little different. Here we’re given a segment of this series that focuses more on realism. Guera and Brusco do a great job of this. Their action scenes look brutal without being over-the-top enough to break the suspension of disbelief. The characters also look terrific. No two characters look alike, even the background ones. Guera and Brusco really put in an impressive amount of detail throughout the issue. This series has been my first exposure to these two artists but they’ve really impressed me. I hope I get to see more of their work after this series is over.

Most of the things I said in my last review regarding lettering still apply here. The black narration box with white text for the introductory bible quote returns. This is accompanied by different coloured sound effects. Both of these techniques do a great job of grabbing the reader’s attention. In addition, there’s also a variety of sizes of text throughout this issue. This is mostly used to indicate the volume of a character’s voice during their dialogue. It’s a technique that not only highlights the severity of certain situations during the issue but it develops the characters. Jael’s loudmouthed nature is shown through this as is the underhanded, potentially untrustworthy personality of the head of the nunnery.

In summary, this was a great second issue for “The Goddammed: The Virgin Brides”. Aaron, Brusco, and Guera have continued to do a brilliant job of developing this religious-themed horror tale. This issue had less focus on the supernatural aspect but the insight into the characters easily makes up for it.  Reading this issue and its predecessor has definitely made me a Jason Aaron fan. His writing on this series has been fantastic so far. I’d recommend this issue to anyone who enjoyed the previous issue or even Aaron’s work in general. Despite being the second issue in this series, this manages to be almost as accessible as the first issue. You could easily read it, understand what’s going on, and go back to read the first if you enjoy it.