Comic Review: Great Divide #2 (Dynamite Entertainment)

“The only time we can touch our loved ones is after they’re gone”

The comic carries on where the last issue left off with Paul accidentally absorbing the conscience of Carlos the brother of his new ally Maria. Despite absorbing the consciousness of Carlos, due to skin contact, this caused Carlos to die. As the never ending threat of looters continues to attack Paul and Maria, they manage to evade their attackers and find some down time to recollect their thoughts amongst this apocalyptic landscape. Paul is able to channel between his conscience and the conscience of the now deceased Carlos. This gives Paul the ability to channel memories of Carlos and Maria when they were growing up in Columbia. (Funny that I know a woman who stems from there, fortunately, my name isn’t Paul, but that’s not the point). The comic gets interesting as our protagonists come across a possible new adversary that could pop up later on down the road of this series… or not.

Great Divide #2 appears to keep the momentum of the first issue. It continues to keep the apocalypse theme fun and interestingly fresh.  The new antagonist (which I’ll dub as) The Collector was an interesting character that I do hope to genuinely see once and awhile down the road. In a day and age like the present where characters can get overused or devalue because of the overuse, it’s nice to see villains who could make a cool presence and not go to waste.  

Ben Fisher’s writing continues to entertain, while also developing the building blocks of the world and the characters and the relationships. The inhabitants in this world always feel tense, mixing elements of Mad Max and 28 days later into something that is distilled into a worthwhile read. I can’t help but reference those movies since it gives off familiarity and aesthetic of those other films. Which is not bad, because it makes the series interesting enough to want to see where it heads next. The art by Adam Markiewicz continues to provide good visuals and visual narrative and detail to cement the barren landscape that the protagonists reside in.   The only thing I wish to see is more of this world and how far the devastation of this epidemic has stretched. I hope this team has an end goal in mind that could give this series a good run of stories that people can look back fondly on and not annoyed by (in the way that people feel about Walking Dead at times). But this issue is a good read, definitely, pick it up.