The helicopter pilot sees a flicker of light, but it’s already too late when he sees it. He knows that it’s too late. That there’s no going back. The caption box over the lightning strike says that a “god screams” when it hits. On the next page, it’s going down in flames as the pilot’s life flashes before his eyes. His death is experienced as a page of total blackness. Then the story of the issue really starts. It’s Indigo Children #5. Writers Curt Pires and Rockwell White continue a heavy superhuman drama with artists Alex Diotto and Dee Cunniffe. 

After tragic recent events, the Indigo Children need to get out of Kabul. Time is of the essence, and they’re not exactly in a position to be hurried. If they can make it to the tunnels, they’re going to be in a good position to get the hell out of there, but those who are in pursuit have overwhelming firepower. To make matters worse, the window for evacuation is rapidly closing. All is quiet on the tarmac. Five minutes. They’re giving the group five more minutes to get there. The gate is burst open by a jeep, but they’re coming in hot. They’re being shot at.

The intro is four pages long. There’s a three-page lead-in to the chase. There’s one page of epilogue. Other than that, it’s one long chase scene. This is not an easy thing for anyone to write. It can get tedious running the heroes through the gauntlet without much time for a breather. Pires and White are grounding the feel of the series quite heavily in reality, so there isn’t a whole lot of internal monologue going on during the chase either...it’s one long rush. The tendency would be to want to throw a whole bunch of obstacles in the way of the heroes, but Pires and White keep it from getting carried away. They keep enough elements in play to keep the chase compelling from beginning to end. 

Diotto and Cunniffe keep the forward momentum of the issue-long chase running without trying anything tricky or aesthetically heroic. It’s all straight-ahead action shooting across the page in very clean and well-rendered panels with a remarkably vivid Kabul shooting by in the background. The atmosphere of the issue is actually kind of powerful. They really capture the feel of an ancient city in the desert without over-rendering it.

The stinger at the end of the story hits perfectly. It’s worth noting that the issue kind of plays out like the final scene of an episode of a one-hour action drama...but it fits a hell of a lot better on the page than it does on the screen. There’s a kind of purity about getting the heroes started without too many bits of subplot and then just...launching them right into a chase that ends at the end of an episode. It’s difficult to imagine that working out in any other format than the single issue of a comic book. 

Grade: A