Review: Absolution TPB

Remember Quantum Leap? The cheesy Scott Bakula vehicle in which Sam Beckett spent his and others time, putting right that which once went wrong. Now throw in some Suicide Squad tech, a Running Man come talking heads opinion show with oodles and oodles of violence and you may get somewhere close to the content and story in the collection of the Absolution mini series.

Nina Ryan, a somewhat “retired” killer has been augmented. Well, if you count having bombs inserted into various sections of her brain, a camera for an eye with an internet feed an augmentation. Now, Nina has once chance, to kill those that are badder than her in creative ways to meet a social media Big Brother driven society. Get enough votes and she reaches Absolution and walks away free; if her votes drop below a certain pint or if she is offline too long, then the bombs go bang! Who lives, who dies and how they die are determined by a plethora of screen names and tags, with Nina’s life in the balance!

The level of absurdity, violence, satirical points of view and keen observations vying for your attention can only be the work Peter Milligan. Milligan looks at the various influences and peppers the story with them. The violence in the book is vicious, gory and over the top in many ways. It is the keener aspects of the world that are probably the most entertaining for me. The odd adverts that scroll through Nina’s feed are a nice touch as are some of the comments from her followers, who take turns to either berate her, ogle her, want her to die or have sex with anyone! A fair slice of any social media interaction for some I believe. The other aspect that i thoroughly enjoyed was the talking heads who offer “expert” opinions on every move by Nina. it’s like watching the NFL Good Morning show or listening to Tony Romo call Josh Allen the alien; pointless unless you watch the game. I suppose you could argue that the these elements are an extension of The Dark Knight Returns psycho-babble, Milligan works hard to ensure that every type of social media voice type is heard, at time a tad too accurately in some cases.

Over recent years Mike Deodato Jr. has moved from cheesecake specialist (see his Wonder Woman work), and developed a cinematic approach to art, full of clever angles, shadows with characters that posses strong body styles and excellent facial elements, even if one character looks like Bruce Willis! Deodato art carries the different subtext prevalent within the book very well; Nina’ journey is dark, the talking heads are positioned very cleverly as if their couch position reflect their politic view. Of course the action is full of movement; you cannot help but follow Nina’s almost graceful killing art, which evolves or devolves for the sake of the precious votes. Lee Loughridge provides the colors scheme that matches both the situations and writing well. Take a look at the studio as an example of this. Letters are superbly applied by Steve Wands, who deals with a variety of word counts, yet never lets the verbosity or lack of affect the art, the storytelling of the emotion of the set pieces.

I missed this the first time around; blame it on having so many books flow through my inbox or blame it on the boogie, but I am very glad that I have had the chance to catch up another well produced, thought provoking, almost self-analysing epic from AWA.

Writing – 5 Stars

Art – 5 Stars

Colors – 5 Stars

Overall – 5 Stars

Written by; Peter Milligan
Art by; Mike Deodato Jr.
Colors by; Lee Roughridge
Letters by; Steve Wands
Published by; AWA Studios

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network