Home #3
Juan learns more about his powers and his aunt Gladys in Home #3, by writer Julio Anta, artist Anna Wieszczyk, colorist Bryan Valenza, and letter Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. This issue is an emotional roller coaster, but it’s also a joy to read.
Mercedes is sent back to Guatemala and immediately calls Gladys when she gets Home. In Texas, Juan watches the news as Gladys tries to get him to watch or do anything to take his mind off things. She picks up the phone when it rings, and she and Mercedes talk. Mercedes asks her to train Juan in the use of his powers just like she had trained his father. Then Mercedes and Julio speak. They both tell each other they miss each other, and Mercedes tells her son to listen to Gladys, and she’ll try to get back to him. They go out to the woods to train, and Gladys gets him to focus and use his powers, but someone sees them and calls the police. They come, and Juan is able to fight them off with Gladys’s help- because she has powers too. At the ICE office, the men in charge discuss Juan and get ready to go after him even harder.
Anta is doing a brilliant job with this book, and this issue is yet another banger. The beginning sequences with Mercedes are just so tragic, not just because the readers know her and her story but because this is a reality for so many. The emptiness of her life without her son is perfectly illustrated by these panels, silent and stark. There’s a palpable sadness to these pages. Juan watching the news is a heartbreaking reminder of just how much kids understand about their world and the fact that they aren’t dumb- the worst has happened to Juan, and he keeps exposing himself to it, possibly to build up anger at the world, a world that has hurt him, something that comes up later during the fight with the cop.
A highlight of the issue is the phone call between Mercedes and Gladys, and Juan. It both gives readers valuable lore about Juan’s father and Gladys and has a beautiful outpouring of genuine love and emotion between mother and son. It’s both beautiful and heartbreaking- they love each other so much, and the scene captures that, but it’s so sad because there’s a chance they’ll never see each other again. The training scenes and the fight are great as well, as they illustrate a feeling that this book hasn’t yet- wonder. Gladys using her power for the first time is a wonderful moment, and when she and Juan take flight over a lake to escape, it’s an awe-inspiring moment. Anta is a master of emotional storytelling, and this issue of Home proves it again.
All of that emotional storytelling wouldn’t be nearly as effective without Wieszczyk’s pencils. The double-page spread of Mercedes and Juan on the phone is a brilliant synthesis of the entire creative team working together to get everything across in the scene. Anta’s script, Wieszczyk’s pencils, Valenza’s colors, and Otsmae-Elhaou’s letters combine to capture the moment so very well. The first few pages wouldn’t be the same without Wieszczyk and Valenza’s amazing art, and the moment Gladys and Juan take flight is so breathtaking.
Home #3 represents a creative team hitting on all cylinders. The story that they are building is excellent, and this issue is yet another example of that. It captures the sorrow of the sundered families, the love of the family members and has an amazing sense of wonder. Anta perfectly builds the emotion of the issue- it starts sad, and it just keeps rising from there. Breathtaking is the perfect way to describe this issue.
