Middlewest #16 // Review
Abel doesn’t know they’re coming to save him. Abel’s trying to save himself. It isn’t easy, though. Mr. Raider has given him increased responsibilities on the farm. If he’s going to be able to figure a way out of incarceration, he’s going to have to do it on limited time and energy in Middlewest #16. Writer Skottie Young lowers one more chapter into place before what promises to be a big showdown between two major forces. Artist Jorge Corona works with mood and action to give power to a buffer chapter between rising action and the big showdown. Colorist Jean-Francois Beaulieu casts the action in dramatic splashes of depth and illumination.
Abel is chasing Fox when he runs into his father. There’s anger. There’s a triggering of dangerous powers. It’s a dream, so it would be perfectly okay if it weren’t for the fact that he’s nearly bringing a hurricane to the barracks he shares with his friends. Having averted disaster, they’re off to work the fields for a crazy old farmer. Just another day for Abel and the rest of the kids. Only it’s raining. Hard. The farm is a dangerous enough place without having to worry about rain. The farmer reassures Abel that if he’s able to hold it together in his new leadership position for long enough, he could stay on for a long time. For Abel...this would be a nightmare. Of course, with his condition, he can’t afford NOT to keep it together...
Young’s pacing of the series has felt a bit strange at times. It might seem strange to put-off the big conflict between Raider Farms and Aunt Maggie’s circus, but this issue DOES serve a purpose. Abel is trying to take matters into his own hands. He’s trying to take responsibility for his own destiny, and he’s taking a leadership position in the process. So this is a big issue for him. Abel has done A LOT of growing-up in sixteen issues. This issue shows just how far he’s come and how much further he has to go.
Corona’s rhythm with Abel’s dream in the first part of this issue is tackled with some very clever and dynamic angles. The first six pages shoot by like a cold breeze. The magic of the story is given powerful illumination in a variety of different colors by Beaulieu, who has been allowed to deliver some strikingly dramatic moods to the page with this issue...which he does with an expert aesthetic hand. From barracks at night to rainy exterior on the farm and beyond, Beaulieu bathes Corona’s art in an appealingly enveloping sense of atmosphere.
An issue like this could have been kind of dull, given the fact that the last installment was charging so confidently in the direction of confrontation. A chapter like this might feel like a bit of a derailment of momentum. Still, Young, Corona, and Beaulieu deliver a solidly entertaining issue on the edge of the next major clash between forces in the Middlewest.
