Killadelphia #2 // Review
The second installment of Killadelphia starts off in the same vein as the first as there are a few stories running parallel that are both intriguing and hold their own separate revelations and clues to what this world is really about. Miss Estelle, an aging grandmother, is at Temple University hospital being tended to by a nurse, seemingly resigned to her inevitable fate. Miss Estelle is in pain, and the drugs aren't working for her anymore. Her grandson Tevin suddenly appears through her hospital window and offers to take away her pain with unknown means and is rebuffed. As a god-fearing woman, Miss Estelle views her pain as a sort of penance for not living forthrightly with god. Tevin, in obvious emotional distress, pleads with her to allow him to help her and promises her pain will be gone so that she will have as much time as she wants if she accepts his help. The dejected Tevin, having been told that anything other than a natural death is an abomination walks back to the window he came in and hovers.
This is how writer Rodney Barnes and the Art team of Jason Shawn Alexander and Luis NCT introduce young, black, urban vampires to Killadelphia. It's soft, emotional, spiritual, and adds an extra layer of humanity to Tevin, so we can assume he isn't just a bloodthirsty, urban vampire. On the other hand, James Sangster Sr has been dug up from his temporary grave, and he is back in Philadelphia, where he is indeed bloodthirsty, having been attacked by vampires and changed. Jr has followed the clues in his father's journal that led him to his father's grave, where the elder Sangster was languishing as an undead. Both Sangster's stop by the morgue to enlist the help of the coroner Jose Padilla who is taken aback by the return of the man she just recently performed an autopsy on. The Sangsters inform Padilla that patient zero in the yellow fever epidemic and the man that has been creating vampires is a former president.
This is a solid second outing for Rodney Barnes, adding some very emotional scenes and sharp dialogue from the newly introduced Tevin and Brittany that pushed the story past just vampires, cops, and dead presidents into a space of familiarity. The helplessness felt as death approaches a loved one and powerlessness to do anything about it. The seething resentment and frustration in Tevin drip from the pages as Jason Shawn Alexander's lines emphasize the suffering and pain in the hospital scenes. Luis NCT used light and dark blues that make it feel cold and institutional in the hospital while using reds and browns to relay the warmth, danger, and blood in the vampire scenes. The opposing colors accentuate each scene as they convey the emotions perfectly and set the table for each subsequent page. Sometimes just a splash of color is expressive and vivid against the dark landscape of Killadelphia. The blood-red tears flowing from Tevin's eyes were sinister and chilling but also add to the humanity that it takes to make the character just human enough for empathy.
A lovely second serving of blood, with a great twist that will keep you on your toes for the third installment. What happens when the brooding Tevin crosses paths with the Sangsters investigation? Is John Adams, a benevolent vampire king sacrificing the few to save the many, or is he an agent of chaos, biding his time in Killadelphia? Definitely building excitement for the next installment.
