Edgewood #1 // Review
A group of kids is heading down to the shore of Geneva Lake to hang out. They're in William's Bay--a sleepy little town across the lake from the birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons. In the early 1960s, Harrison Ford performed in summer stock theater not far from there. Now, a group of kids are pulling six-eyed fish out of a lake that's been warped by the twisted magics of an invading army of demons. This is the first issue of Edgewood. Writer/artist Tony S. Daniel opens a whole new series with an expansive, world-building first issue. Color comes to the page courtesy of Jay David Ramos.
They're on the shores of Geneva Lake. There's an explosion. Suddenly, the area is a snowy hellscape. In September. (This would be totally normal for Wisconsin in January...but September? Something's clearly wrong.) They're launched headlong into Edenwood: a witchcraft-controlled land that acts as a barrier against a witch-and-demon war zone and the rest of the U.S. There's a war going on, and it's not going to be pretty. Demons battle against weaponized witches in a vicious, vicious battle that could help determine the fate of the Earth.
Daniel's story crunches together a hell of a lot in a minimal time. There's a lot of world-building to be done, but there's also a lot of initial story to deliver. And there isn't a lot of space in the first issue in which to cram. As a result, the first if she feels a little bit rushed. And it does feel pleasantly overwhelming in the way the various plot elements shoot onto the page. It's a clever mix of horror, action, and war drama that explodes off the page.
Virtual reality of a war between witches and demons March is across the page in a very militarized fashion. Comic book-based action horror here's a tricky thing to pull off in a way that feels both truly horrifying and exhilarating in the delivery of the action. Daniel manages to do both with exceeding ease in an issue that has quite a bit of impact. Some remarkably stunning visuals deliver both a deliciously immersive atmosphere and some pretty gruesome horror. All come together quite well in what could be a very sharp fusion of quite a few different genres.
The background and world-building that are going on in the first issue. Have an incredible density about them. This is going to be kind of a challenge moving forward. The series could be remarkable if the world-building settles down a bit in the issues to come. Yes, it is. Things are whipping across the page very, very quickly. And this does deliver a really impressive "fog of war" sort of an effect on the reader. Still, it will get really old quickly if Daniel doesn't settle the narrative down at least a bit and allow the central drama to dictate the pacing of the action.
