Gung-Ho: Anger #3

Gung-Ho: Anger #3

Ablaze Publishing 2021

Written by Benjamin Von Eckartsberg

Illustrated by Thomas Von Kummant

Lettered by Taylor Esposito

Translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger

On their way back home, one member of the teens’ expedition pays the ultimate price after being ambushed by a pack of reapers. Upon returning to Fort Apache, Zack decides to confront Celine, pushing her to tell the truth in order to clear his brother’s name. But the mounting pressure may be too much for her to handle… And another expedition into the danger zone is launched, this time by the adults, to locate and recover the missing supplies from the train—supplies that the colony desperately needs to survive.

Well the more this story continues the more the kids learn the truth and what that means is anyone’s guess. After all, Kingsten and Bagster have this place locked down tight and they are in cahoots with one another to stay in power here. Hell it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Bagster were the one who has been stealing from the train, outright instead of skimming, in some display of machismo power play. I’m still trying to figure out what is wrong with Kingsten mentally that she feels this innate need to be in control and will do whatever she feels necessary, like sacrificing Archer, to stay in that seat of power. It is a messed up dynamic that will get the entire village, outpost or whatever you call it killed.

I’m really rather enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to portray them as real individuals whom we can relate to. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story the more fascinated we become.

I greatly appreciate the way that we see this structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. These layers add so much depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are really rather impressive. The computer generated artwork is always impressive and seeing Tanaka with the shading contouring his face and giving it depth and dimension is utterly amazing. I am more impressed with the backgrounds than I probably should be but they are just so gosh darn impressively detailed and how they enhance and expand the moments while working within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book is magnificent. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is seriously brilliant to see.

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This series just keeps getting more and more impressive issue by issue, arc by arc and that’s just the way it should be. The more complex and interesting that things get the more we want to see how things are going to unfold. I mean I'm sorry but Bagster after this issue should be hung and quartered for what he did sending that box to Celine. The proverbial shit is going to hit the fan and it’s going to happen soon and it’s these kids that are going to save the town and here’s hoping that these two douchebags are the first to fall, though it’s usually the cowards that survive and take credit for the win. With some dramatic and spectacular writing alongside these amazing interiors this is the face of comics moving forward and what they are capable to becoming.