Publisher's Weekly Review
Superhero mavens Snyder (Batman) and Lemire (the Essex Trilogy, Sweet Tooth) team for a challenging and thought-provoking speculative work set 825 years after a cure for death is found. The mix of graphic novel and illustrated text captures protagonist Jonah as he ponders the world that deathlessness has wrought, peppered with extended flashbacks to the days before the cure. Snyder's script and concepts are sharp and fertile, and recall his pre-comics work as a prose novelist. The art elevates this from an exegesis on mortality to a gripping, elegiac illustrated adventure that bedazzles and fascinates. Lemire has a crackerjack sense of storytelling pace and tempo to back up his art chops, and he puts an unearthly spin on fantastic settings and creatures but never forgets that this is a very human story. This puzzle-box story rewards careful (and repeat) reading. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Image Comics' promising experiment in format is this oversize book matching the content density, gravitas, and production value of a graphic novel with the slimmer page count and monthly serialized storytelling of a standard comic. Snyder, the much-lauded Batman scribe, counting on the relatively short wait for the next episode, suggests just enough of what's going on to keep you hooked to the story of Jonah Cooke. Though hundreds of years old, Cooke is haunted by a psychological trauma early in his life that he's carried into a rural future that is somehow postapocalyptic, despite the fact that the few people left appear to be immortal. In both the comics portion (the story's present) and the passages of illustrated text (flashbacks to Cooke's past), the sense of edgy half-understanding and uncertainty is distilled with perfect, smudged beauty by Lemire's art. His work here exemplifies his highly personal style, an achingly melancholy expanse of lushly natural settings with a quiet and pervasive uneasiness roiling beneath. He populates it with fragile, angular characters whose eyes are etched with all the anxiety that this world, or any imagined one, could possibly offer. The success of such an experiment is, ultimately, in the quality of the story, and Snyder and Lemire make this a resounding one.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Imagine a world in which death could be cheated, cured by modern science. Would things be better? Maybe, or possibly worse. Jonah Cooke, a part-time thief, inadvertently steals an item that leads him on the path to immortality. Suffering through the horrible death of his mother and unborn brother at age 12 has shaped his destiny. Now he must decide if he can accept who he is and remain that way forever. In a story that explores questions of sacrifice and whether we have what it takes to become ageless, Snyder (Wytches; American Vampire) makes us wonder: Are the stakes too high for some but not for others? And while the body may be engineered to live infinitely, are the processes of the mind limited? Letterer Wands and Lemire's (Descender; Plutona) illustrations paint a washed-out world, bringing a sense of despair that serves as an underlying current of the narrative. Part graphic fiction and part stream-of-consciousness, this poignant tale will have readers grappling with the moral aspects of mortality. Verdict A highly thought-provoking story that is both enjoyable and slightly depressing, in essence, very similar to real life. A must for core graphic novel collections.-Laura McKinley, Huntington P.L., NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
