Comic Review: Last Stop on the Red Line #1 (Dark Horse)

All aboard the Crazy Train, it’s heading for the Last Stop On The Red Line! This new title from Dark Horse Comics is a screeching, tilting express, bound for blood.

From the cover, a dark, nicely thought out image showing a woman’s upturned head and her arteries indicated as subway stops, gets right to the point.

This is indeed a story of craziness. The visuals by Sam Lotti (colours by John Rauch) are tremendously kinetic. Vivid, well rendered and memorable. Solid rendering skills abound, and it’s no stopping until, well, the end.

There is a serial killer inhabiting the Boston subway line. That’s for sure. But while the subway line remains a horror-filled dangerous place in which to transport yourself, that’s not the whole story. There is one scene in particular, with a flirtatious mom and her child’s rescuer, that helps us remain unsettled. What is going on here?

Writer Paul Maybury delivers the chills and thrills. The dialogue is spot on, the scenes spooky and horrifying. From time to time we, the readers, are kept wondering what is happening, particularly during the subway rides. Well. sometimes we need to return to the scene of the crime, as it were, to check our facts, to see if we are getting it. Wha just happened? Did we miss the figure sitting further down the subway car? Was I napping and miss my stop?

But that’s a small price to pay in jumping the turnstiles and leaping into the fray of the Last Stop on the Red Line.

Dark Horse Comics, Last Stop on the Red Line, #4.99 for 24 pages of content. No rating shown, so let’s assume Mature for violence and horror.