Nuclear Family #2

Nuclear Family #2

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Stephanie Phillips

Illustrated by Tony Shasteen

Coloured by JD Mettler

Lettered by Troy Peteri

When the Big One dropped on their house in 1957 the Cold War turned hot for the McClean family. Forced to contend with the literal fallout in a Wisconsin suffering from nuclear winter, where almost all civilization has been wiped from the map, the McClean's now have to wonder, is the year still 1957, or has something more shocking happened?

Admittedly i wasn’t impressed by the first issue as it deviated from the source material a little too much for me. This is why I always read the next issue to see if things change at all and they have actually, what we see this issue is amazing and I have to hand it to Stephanie for the way she’s written this. The whole thing is crazy and in a good way to boot because there’s a lot of confusion, tension and sheer disbelief going around in this issue that it creates this absolutely delicious drama. I don’t know the full extent of where they went but the fact that the bombs didn’t penetrate the house and they find themselves being labeled commies was a solid ending and a stellar opening here.

I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented in a way that constantly moves everything forward. The character development that we see is really rather quite good. How we see the characters act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter alongside the dialogue we see is fleshing them out nicely. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing this world to us we get caught up in what they are going through. The engagement level for the reader here is outrageously good because we see and hear what Tim does and our minds race to figure out exactly what happened.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story seem to change and adapt to the current situation. I am actually a lot more impressed than I’d thought I’d be but the story and the storytelling have hit their stride. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is rendered very nicely.

I have been a fan of Tony’s for a while now as his linework is always exquisite and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to showcase this level of quality in the work, especially the detail work is astounding. Now I’m always going to want to see more backgrounds because when we do it’s glorious, the kitchen pantry, the outdoors with the charred trees culminating in that two page spread, that gone blew my friggin mind, what we see is extraordinary. The depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story are all showcased through the composition within the panels. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masters eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is brilliantly rendered. The way we see the pops of colour or the hazy filter its really rather impressive to see how it looks on the pages.

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This is where the story gets good and all twilight zone on us. The twists & turns are coming at the McClean family faster and faster and it’s nice to see at least one of them is thinking on their feet. I have become so engaged in this that I have to wonder where this level of technology has come from? It seems far more advanced than it should be for the year they are in. Now i’m hooked and I cannot wait to see what’s going to happen next.