By: Ed Brisson (writer/creator/letters), Johnnie Christmas (art/creator), Shari Chankhamma (colors)
The Story: Things are coming apart at the seams as the murderous kids have to deal with outside intervention.
The Review (with SPOILERS): This was another really strong issue for this series. It starts out kinda slow, but about 2/3 through the issue, it “gets real” when the remaining adult from the last issue is forced to kill one of the murderous little kids as they’re chasing him through the woods.
What I liked about the scene (and the series) is how unflinching it is. The creators do perform the proper set-up for this fleeing adult: He has seen his friends murdered, he’s running through the snowy woods in the middle of the night (in the middle of nowhere), he’s been shot in the leg, and he STILL has three kids with guns chasing him. So, the comic does go to great lengths to demonstrate that he really has no choice but to fight back and they demonstrate his remorse afterwards – even though he knew he had no choice. But, the way they depict the shooting of a kid is pretty blunt.
The whole scene is surreal. One moment they’re just kids running through the woods after an adult; they are KIDS and don’t really understand life and death and consequences. They’re chasing the adult just because that’s what the other kids are doing. The next moment one of these kids is shot through the chest- dying – and the other kids really don’t know what to do. Their only prior experience with injury has been when friends skin their knees and you call for a parent, except they cannot do that because they killed all the parents. Now they’re just kids lost in the forest who need help….but can’t get any help.
Even the ringleader Lucas is seeing things differently. He’s the root cause of all of this and unsurprisingly – his plan kinda sucks because he’s a kid too. He probably had it all mapped out in his head how it would work, but now that it isn’t going according to plan, doubt is starting to creep in. The only problem is that he could either make things a LOT bloodier or he could surrender. Surrender might be an option in real life, but it would make for a drab story, so I’ll bet this story gets a lot more vicious before the end.
Ultimately I think one of the attractions to Sheltered is that it is a rebellion against all these stories about magical children like Ender’s Game, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc. that show kids leading adults because children have special powers or something. I’ve enjoyed a lot of those books, but I’ve always thought the idea of kids leading adults is problematic because kids are stupid and do stupid things until they get to be about 35 years old. I mean, what is wrong with the adults in The Hunger Games that they need an 18 year old to convince them to grow a pair and stand up to a corrupt government? Look through history and you find very few underage leaders (Joan of Arc, Alexander, ???) So, it’s nice to see a comic focus on the failings of youth. It’s very Stand by Me.
The art is still wonderful. There are a lot of quiet moments in the story where scripter Brisson is trusting artist Christmas to carry a scene with silent facial expressions. It’s really good stuff because he really captures that “cocky on the outside-unsure on the inside” that we all remember from being 14 years old. I just love how all of the characters have a look/feel/personality about them and that’s all down to the artwork. This comic wouldn’t work nearly as well with the same script and a bunch of static, photo-referenced art.
Conclusion: Another very good issue of a wonderful little series. This is a story of things going horribly wrong. It’s about to get very Hobbesian.
Grade: A-
– Dean Stell
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