This week’s Wednesday Comics Reviews column features a pair of finale issues with Godzilla – Heist #5 and Plague House #4, along with with a pair of reviews in Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story #1 and Gehenna: Naked Aggression #1. We also look ahead at a trio of new titles eligible for pre-order in our FOC Watch section. Plus, as always, The Prog Report!
Godzilla – Heist #5
Writer: Van Jensen
Artist: Kelsey Ramsay
Colors: Heather Breckel
Letters and Design: Sandy Tanka
Publisher: IDW Entertainment
Review by Jordan Jennings
The Heist may have gone astray, but the overall plan is still in motion as Jai aims to end Godzilla’s reign of terror. Godzilla – Heist #5 is the cathartic release of all of Jai’s frustrations as he pilots MechaGodzilla in an action packed brawl through London.
Writer Van Jensen continues to provide a smart and snappy story with the final issue of this delightful and novel series. Back in my review of Godzilla: Heist #1, I talked about how Jensen spent considerable time establishing Jai’s motivations and this issue is the pay off that the series needed. Throughout this series we have learned how Godzilla has negatively shaped Jai and his family, and why he is out to get revenge against Godzilla and the British government.
Jensen’s characterization of Jai is done through first person narration and provides valuable insights into the character. He presents himself as someone who has planned everything out, but in reality is freaking out as he stares down the King of Monsters. It makes for a much more compelling character and gives him some complexity beyond “Super Crook”.
Kelsey Ramsay’s art is the central driver of this series. Ramsay’s style is hyperfluid and kinetic in its composition. They capture the size and scope of Godzilla in a way that artists often struggle to do convincingly. How Ramsay is able to do this feat is through well done rendering and providing reference points. Both Godzilla and MechaGodzilla are rendered with such detail that it provides weight to the character. They feel larger than life and have a sense of gravity about them. The fight between the titans takes advantage of the comics medium and is able to do things that are difficult to pull off with traditional suit-a-mation. It’s a particularly violent fight to the end and its success really helps this issue as it’s an issue-long brawl. The choreography has a fight psychology about it that effectively showcases Jai’s personal conviction and vendetta against Godzilla.
Heather Breckel’s colors once again help elevate the book into something special. Godzilla Heist looks different from everything else on the shelves at the comic shop. Breckel is able to help capture tone and mood of each scene and the brilliant pops of color from the atomic breath and explosions that are splashed throughout the issue makes for an absolute visual treat.
Godzilla – Heist has been one of my favorite Godzilla comics this past year. It manages to weave the novel concept of a heist story with a traditional Godzilla story. The pacing is frantic and the series focuses on the human element as Godzilla is the storm in the background. Godzilla is the dagger hanging over the heads of the team as they try to complete the mission. This final issue has cemented my love for the book. The ending gives room for future Heist stories and I hope for a sequel. Godzilla – Heist #5 and the series as a whole is a lot of fun and I wholeheartedly recommend checking this series out.
Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story #1
Writer: Maytal Zchut
Art: Leila Leiz
Colors: Alex Sinclair
Letters: Rob Leigh
Publisher: Image Comics – Ghost Machine
Review by Clyde Hall
The Hyde Street series was my chosen winner of the unofficial horror comics anthology competition last year, but given the high quality of all entrants, we readers were the true winners. The Ghost Machine title shoulders ahead of the pack by not only concentrating on the story-of-the-issue, but by fleshing out the backstory of the horror host characters as well. All the surreal shopkeepers along Hyde Street, from Mr. X-Ray to Pranky to the Matinee Monster, have their own tales of how they became fixtures on this avenue running closely adjacent to both The Twilight Zone and the Night Gallery.
In the launch of this 5-issue miniseries spin-off, Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story, we encounter another member of the creepy Hyde Street Chamber of Commerce. Sister Hood is the psychic proprietor of a divination parlor, and while we aren’t treated to the details of how she earned her storefront, we do see how entering into a business arrangement with her can be life changing. Death-changing, too, as it happens.
We meet Sophie and Violet, two kids who’d make great entry pics in any urban dictionary under ‘BFF’s. Their bond is further strengthened after a tragic car accident which they survived, but that claimed the life of Sophie’s mother. Fast forward to college years and the two young women remain connected, freshmen roommates at university. But their personalities are taking different courses as they leave childhood behind. Violet’s joining a sorority and waiting for the pledging process to finish so she can become a member of Sigma Iota Nu. Sophie’s focused fully on her academic career and making the most of her scholarship opportunities.
When the sorority hazing goes horribly wrong, Sophie finds herself on the receiving end of fate once again. But this time, she’s haunted by the unending mental dirge of, “If only I had—”. She’s alone. Bitter. Angry. Which is a great GPS route to Hyde Street. The regret of her lost sisterhood brings Sophie to Sister Hood’s shop in an effort to contact the spirit of her dearly departed. It’s the way Hyde Street shopkeepers manage their patron tally. They take a mortal adrift on seas of despair and grant their wishes. Or offer a miraculous alternative. From there, the souls of customers hang in the balance, awaiting their final destinations. For Sophie, her pathway’s fully committed to the ‘forever’ part of BFF.
Writer Maytal Zchut taps into two frightening elements for the scripting, and channels both expertly. One is the understanding that, especially as a child, you have little control over the forces around you. Terror abounds in being mostly an observer regarding your own fate. The second is even more frustrating. How as adults we may make our own choices, but some we’d give anything to undo.
These portions of Zchut’s narrative land well. Well enough to give me a chill in the first heatwave of summer. And there will likely be many readers sharing the same unease. Because she’s mining a depth most of us can identify with firsthand. Those dual experiences, being victim of a misfortune you had zero control over as a child, and the loss of a loved one in a situation your presence might have prevented, perch like ravens over many doorways. My own circumstances closely reflect the lethal consequences Sophie faces and must then cope with. I suspect most of us will find her situations relatable. And in the manner Zchut presents them, we become readers open to and sharing in Sophie’s tormented mindset when she rings the shop bell at Sister Hood’s.
Artist Leila Leiz is self-taught, and the natural flow, the interesting panel shapes, become showcases for the depth of her illustration talent here. In her capable hands, the hurt of childhood loss becomes real while the artificial perfection of even the haughtiest sorority crowd reveals its warts. The color palette provided by Alex Sinclair shifts beautifully from hazy childhood scenes muted slightly in memory, to vibrant young adulthood on campus, to the eerie and often murky blending of both into a final scene carrying its own unsettling, horrific tones.
Lots of friends are posting online with screen caps of horror films, R.L. Stine cover art, and Samhain Trick ‘r Treat sketches labelled, “Me the Day After July 4th.” If you’re one who shares that mindset, Hyde Street in general is your mug of spiced apple cider. And Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story #1 is a title that’ll cast a spell of autumn over your summer, a halfway-to-Halloween joy that’ll carry you into those beloved, bewitching Ember months.
Gehenna: Naked Aggression #1
Writer: Patrick Kindlon
Art: Maurizio Rosenzweig
Colors: Matteo Vattani
Letters: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Image Comics
Review by Clyde Hall
Working security is the worst of many worlds. I’ve done it, and it’s serving and protecting only in the sense of serving a business and protecting their liability while meeting insurance requirements and keeping costs in lost merchandise or broken furniture low. And not getting hurt or hurting a customer, because that’s a fast track for being disavowed quicker than an Impossible Missions team. It’s a tough balance and on a midland to shallow pay scale.
Patrick Kindlon penning the first issue of Gehenna: Naked Aggression creates a worst case scenario of just this sort of work. It’s the tinder that lights the fires of main character Gehenna’s personal hell and Kindlon cleverly and succinctly relates how the tragedy of that former life led the female assassin to her worst case scenario present.
Expect windburn from the pace set with the first panel. Then strap in for a gunpowder-scented and gore-strewn gauntlet run. Gehenna has a contract, a gangster probably obstructing her employer’s path to greener gangster pastures. Instead of an operation by the numbers, she runs into a heavily armed yet somewhat remedial bodyguard team for the target’s young son. Assassin switches to kidnapping mode, and the dialogue and plot afterward explores both Gehenna’s past and all sides involved grasping the evolving dynamics of their situation. It’s a tall order in three acts, especially with the bullet-play propellant seldom winding down. And it ends with a new player being dealt in amidst hopes she can counter the impressive improvisation skills of Gehenna. Someone serious.
If you know Kindlon from his work on the Frontiersman comics, how well he scores a bullseye with this opening issue shouldn’t surprise you. And if you don’t, that series deals with a superhero who survived his misspent youth of Bronze Age crimefighting only for the life to keep pulling him back in when he should be enjoying his AARP discounts. It’s a pulpish guilty pleasure series I never once felt guilty about enjoying. And Gehenna occupies a somewhat more noir corner of his universe.
Just as Gehenna, her enemies, and even her young hostage pull no punches regarding their street level pragmatism, artist Maurizio Rosenzweig infuses his panels with a similar visual spirit. His medium? The same grittiness, guns, and femme fatale formula that crime cover masters like Mitchell Hooks, Norman Saunders, and Robert McGinnis worked in. With Rosenzweig, that psyche and style blends, meeting at the intersection of Seedy and Sublime. And it never strays. Bandaged nose and scars on the otherwise sultry assassinatrix making sure the cost of doing her kind of business is never lost in ‘glamour’. A kid of soft form but sharp outlook who may get our empathy but who’s the farthest thing from cute. Streams of blood and eyeballs loosened by muzzle blast. These are the visual elements keeping us following along at the narrative’s pause-less pace.
Lastly, be sure to read Kindlon’s afterword. As someone who grew up still seeing the fun and excitement in less than perfectly executed films, comics, or paperbacks, I can relate to his outlook and how he addresses it with Gehenna: Naked Aggression. There’s merit in his observation that modern attempts at action stories, in comics or other pulpish venues, often try educating about everything, from an era or setting to underlying moral imperatives wielded like a Catholic school cudgel. If instead you enjoy your action darkly rendered and mature in content, the sort that comes with full-bodied ferocity and a Grindhouse flavor, this title delivers.
Rapid Wednesday Comics Reviews
- Plague House #4 (Oni Press): At its conclusion, Plague House #4 left me deep in thought about the use of violence as it brings Del’s actions back around into focus. This is a strong finish to the series as the art and lettering of Dave Chisolm have been stellar throughout. It is a disturbingly stunning story to look at; there are two great spreads here that flex the control of visual flow and artistry on display, heightening the storytelling of writer Michael W. Conrad. It’s a tight ending, though I wonder why it sits on me so heavily. The explicit juxtaposition it draws I think makes it more heavy, where I think about how our institutions of healthcare, corporations and government are violent. Policy kills people, denying care kills people, the environmental impact of corporate greed kills people. Certainly one person is ineffective in changing a system and that’s where Del falls short, but I wonder if the message is one that is more nihilistic in the end. Violence is cyclical and haunts all involved, all who perpetrate it, but what breaks the cycle when the asymmetrical violence fills the pockets of people explicitly poisoning the earth, when they are rewarded for it? When politicians scoff at policy killing us, responding “Well, we all are going to die,” are Del’s vigilante actions equivalent? Especially when millions in reality die from hunger, lack of clean water and preventable illness? That’s policy, that’s capitalism. This is a thought provoking read that outside of the haunted houses is haunting in its own right. —Khalid Johnson
FOC Watch
These books are available for pre-order now.
I, Tyrant #1
Writer: ee zann
Artist: Godfarr
Letterer: Amir Zann
Publisher: Image Comics
Due Out: July 30, 2025
With a final cutoff set for this coming Monday, this week is your last chance to pre-order this new, surprising book from Image Comics. I, Tyrant #1 was created and scripted by debut writer ee zann, and it features artwork by up-and-coming artist Godfarr. In many ways, it’s a tough book to classify, right from the cover and the sort of lo-fi, minimalist design of the production pages. But I liked all of that. I felt like it really let me know early that I was in for something different and jarring.
Story-wise, this book is about, as the publisher puts it, “The lives of a struggling but madly ambitious Iranian playwright, Hafez Bashee, and an Arab serpent-king from 611 A.D, Zahhak, who once was given the power to halt death itself in its tracks become reticulated around a non-zero sum game.” It’s a book that oscillates between familiar modern times and a bygone era, to great effect. It’s a really bold vision from the storytellers, and I feel confident in saying you won’t find another periodical comic quite like it this year.
There’s also some really poignant material in here about the creative process that I enjoyed. If you’re looking for something new, different, and powerful — get I, Tyrant #1 on your pull list.
The Prog Report
2000AD 2439 (Rebellion Publishing): There’s a new Dredd arc kicking off this week from writer Rob Thompson, artist RM Guera, colorist Giulia Brusco, and Annie Parkhouse. Entitled Judge Dredd: Tunnels, the story is set in Ciudad Barranquilla, which is Dredd’s world’s Brazil. And after two quick pages of setup, the story is essentially all-out action. I dug it. It’s a quick, relatively simple read, but it reeled me in for the duration of this arc. I was predisposed to like it, though, since I have enjoyed this team’s other Dredd work. So yeah, this opening chapter is quick, violent, and effective. Elsewhere in this week’s Prog, we get the conclusion of Nu Earth: War Tales, a three-part story from the team of writer Gordon Rennie, artist Jake Lynch, colorist Dylan Teague, and letterer Jim Campbell. And I enjoyed it. Since there’s no Rogue Trooper here, the stakes are a bit higher, in that it’s not clear that any of the characters will make it out. So that served it well. Throw in a new Future Shock as well, and it’s all in all a really decent week. This week’s cover (above) is by Cliff Robinson, with colors by Dylan Teague. As always, you can pick up a digital copy of The Prog here. —Zack Quaintance
Column edited by The Beat’s reviews editor, Zack Quaintance. Read past entries in the weekly Wednesday Comics reviews series!
Next week…Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees returns with a new comic, Post Malone speeds headlong into comics with Big Rig #1, and more!
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