The BeQuest #4

The BeQuest #4

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Tim Seeley

Illustrated by Freddie E. Williams II

Coloured by Jeremy Colwell

Lettered by Marshall Dillon

The epic conclusion as the War Party converges on Washington, D.C. to stop the Mad Monk and his American Acolytes from murdering a god!

I’m a little sad that this is the conclusion to the arc but then again that doesn’t mean that won’t ever be another, not with how this one ends. I really have enjoyed the way that we’ve seen this story play itself out. What with the council “punishing” Warlock and his war party by sending them to Earth to thwart Dylan and his men by working with Relic. Now it has been fun to see the group acclimate themselves to life in this realm so that the much needed humour and the action/adventure blend together absolutely beautifully. What I appreciate is that this could have been put into another issue but Tim wisely said that the entire thing could and should be done in four and why drag things out when they don’t have to be. I would’ve enjoyed it but that’s purely for selfish reasons and it shows why I’m not a writer of stories.

I really like 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 tot he situations and circumstances that they encounter. What makes this even more impressive is that the party knew what they were getting themselves into and to see this happen as it does is fantastic. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is incredibly well achieved.

I greatly appreciate how we see this being structured and how the layers continue to grow, evolve and strengthen, heck there’s even one that begins anew and these are all dependent on the avenue explored. I love the extra depth and complexity that is added because of how we see the characterisation and how the party absolutely becomes a family in nearly every sense of the term. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is so perfectly achieved.

I am in love with Freddie’s work here. This has his style stamped on it but for whatever the reason it feels so fresh, new and different to me. It is like an evolution of his work. The linework is phenomenal and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level of detail work is astounding. I wish we saw more backgrounds but with the composition within the panels being what it is and how they bring depth perception, this sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story more than makes up for that. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is absolutely brilliant. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such a gorgeous eye for how colour can and should work.

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This has been fun from the get-go. Sure it’s violent but then any world set in a dungeons & dragons style setting generally is and while this doesn’t always translate into the Earthly realm it does more than have its moments. So long as they go after folks, see beings or creatures, from the other realms or bad guys from the Earthly realm and I don’t think you’ll have that large a problem from the general public should they learn of what’s going on. Law enforcement well that’ll be another story entirely. Still what this does is open up a world of possibilities for more stories to be told.