Terrorwar #3 // Review
Muhammad Cho and his group of Terrorfighters earned a little bit of relaxation at a Blue City bar. Too bad it had to be short-lived. The authorities are moving in to apprehend them. Theoretically, they could put up a fight, but they might want to find out why they’re wanted in Terrorwar #3. Writer Saladin Ahmed continues his dystopian horror sci-fi tale with the art team of artist Dave Acosta, inker Jay Leisten, and colorist Walter Pereyra. Things get really uncomfortable for a low-rent group of Terrorfighters in a breezy, dramatic second issue that echoes some very appealing cyberpunk tropes.
Cho and company decide to turn themselves in. What’s the worst that could happen? Those who had come to collect them put them aboard a craft that takes them all the way up to the top of Blue City. All of them are from the street level. None of them have ever been up that high. They’re being taken to one of the tallest buildings in the city. Who would want to speak to them with THAT kind of power? Cho’s going to get an offer he can’t refuse. Then he’s going to refuse it. That’s when things get really ugly.
A beaten-up, low-level adventurer is given a job offer by someone with a very high level of authority. They want to refuse, but they can’t. It’s the type of thing that’s been around in adventure fiction forever, but Ahmed’s cyberpunk setting for Terrorwar calls to mind similar scenes in Neuromancer, Escape from New York, Bladerunner, and a host of others. Ahmed has crafted a novel enough world for the series that the homage to an old cyberpunk trope feels sharp and stylish rather than weak and derivative. He will have to work to keep it that way. He’s working in territory that’s been explored extensively in novels, movies, and video games over the past few decades.
Acosta frames the action pretty well. There’s a lack of elegance to the actual rendering of the art that might have something to do with the work of the inker, but it all glides across the page with a remarkably appealing visual reality. It would be kind of difficult to find an original way to bring Blue City to the page that feels distinct from so many other visions of cyberpunk cities over the years. Acosta finds a simple visual shorthand and works with it. Pereyra gives Blue City a nice sheen and depth that feels well-suited to the atmosphere that Ahmed seems to be going for.
Ahmed has found a nice mix of genres. The third issue of the series leans pretty heavily on the cyberpunk end of the equation. It works pretty well, but the ensemble of characters doesn’t necessarily come across with a great deal of depth. Ahmed has a major part of the plot to lower into place, and it doesn’t allow for a whole lot of interesting characterization in and within the machinery of the plot, but there’s no doubt that more personality is coming in future issues.
