Westron #2 Review: A Brutal Noir Mystery With Folk-Horror Teeth

WEPAAAAAAA! Now this is how you follow up a bloody, creepy, “what in the midnight madness did I just read?” first issue. Westron #2 by Shawn McBee and Maciej Jankowski does not come charging through the front door swinging a chainsaw just to prove it has teeth. Nah, this issue is smarter than that. It walks in quietly, wipes its shoes, sits across from you in a dim room, and then slowly places one disturbing clue after another on the table until your brain starts whispering, “Fam… something is deeply, deeply wrong here.”

And that is the power of this second chapter. Westron #2 understands that horror works best when the mystery breathes. Issue #1 gave us the savage hook: teen sisters Astrid and Natalia enter the woods, something horrific happens, and what should have been a tragedy becomes something far stranger when Natalia turns violent in a way that makes no normal sense. Issue #2 takes that chaos and turns it into an investigation layered with guilt, obsession, memory, and a folkloric stink that feels like it crawled out from under old roots.

This issue is not just about finding Natalia. It is about Jan Westron trying to solve one case while being haunted by another. That is where the book starts flexing. Jan is not written as some slick, invincible private investigator who always has the answers and never sweats through his shirt. He is sharp, yes. He is relentless, absolutely. But he is also carrying emotional baggage big enough to need its own checked luggage fee. His present-day search for Natalia keeps dragging him backward into the unresolved trauma of Karolina, the childhood friend whose kidnapping and murder shaped him in ways he may not fully admit. That dual-track storytelling gives the book a heavier emotional spine than your average “detective follows clues in the woods” story.

Shawn McBee and Maciej Jankowski build this chapter like a slow-burn crime file dipped in nightmare ink. The pacing is deliberate, but never dull. Jan interviews people, revisits locations, studies behavior, and digs into small details most people would ignore. A photo. A bottle. A path hidden behind brush. A cabin. A memory that will not stay buried. The book makes the investigative process feel tactile. You can almost smell the stale smoke, wet leaves, cheap beer, old paper, and human desperation. That is a compliment, by the way. A grimy one, but still a compliment.

What makes Westron #2 stand out is how confidently it shifts between tones. In one sequence, we are in grounded procedural territory, watching Jan question locals and sift through the kind of ugly human mess that always seems to gather around missing-person cases. Then the book slides into memory, and suddenly the colors heat up, the panels bend, and the past feels less like a flashback and more like a wound reopening under neon light. That is where the creative team starts cooking with hot oil. The story does not separate Jan’s trauma from the case. It braids them together until the reader starts wondering if Jan is solving a mystery, reliving one, or walking straight into a supernatural trap with his name carved on it.

The art team deserves a big spotlight here. Nicolás Nieto and Matías De Vincenzo bring different visual textures to the issue, but instead of feeling disjointed, the shift works because the story itself is moving between emotional and narrative states. The present-day investigation has a grounded, grim, almost European noir heaviness to it. Jan’s suit, posture, and facial expressions make him feel like a man who learned long ago that being polite gets you in the door, but being stubborn gets you the truth. The flashback material hits with a more feverish intensity, using color and shadow to make the past feel alive, dangerous, and unstable.

Carla Somoza and Matías De Vincenzo’s colors are doing serious storytelling work. This is not “fill the spaces and call it a day” coloring. The palette knows when to go cold and oppressive, when to let the forest swallow the page, and when to explode into violent magentas, oranges, and reds that make memory feel like a panic attack wearing theatrical lighting. That contrast between natural darkness and lurid emotional heat is one of the issue’s strongest weapons. It gives the book a visual pulse. Sometimes it is slow and sickly. Sometimes it starts racing.

Francisco Zamora’s lettering keeps the whole machine moving cleanly, which matters a lot in a book with narration, interviews, flashbacks, sudden horror imagery, and dense emotional beats. The lettering never fights the art, never loses the rhythm, and knows how to let silence sit when silence is the scariest thing in the room. In horror comics, that is huge. A misplaced balloon can kill tension faster than someone yelling “let’s split up” in a haunted house. Thankfully, this issue knows how to let the quiet moments hurt.

Now let’s talk mature readers. Westron #2 is definitely not one for the kiddie spinner rack between the superhero lunchboxes and the bubblegum cards. The book carries violence, harsh language, sexual material, unsettling imagery, and some light nudity. But here is the important part: it does not feel cheap. The mature content is part of the grime, danger, and moral rot of the world Jan is investigating. It is there to make the story feel dangerous and uncomfortable, not to wave shiny keys in your face. This is adult horror-crime storytelling, and it wears that label with purpose.

One of my favorite things about this issue is how it refuses to give the reader too much comfort. Every answer feels like it opens a worse question. Every person Jan meets seems to know a little something, hide a little something, or carry a little stain on their soul. The town itself feels infected by secrets. Landri’s Trail is not just a location anymore; it is starting to feel like a pressure point. A place where past and present overlap. A place where violence leaves footprints even when the blood dries.

If there is one thing readers should know going in, it is that Westron #2 rewards attention. This is not a lazy skim-and-scroll comic. Names matter. Faces matter. Small gestures matter. If issue #1 was the hook through the jaw, issue #2 is the slow pull. It is more investigative, more psychological, and more layered. Some readers may want to revisit issue #1 before diving in, because this chapter builds heavily on what came before. That is not a weakness. That is serialized storytelling doing its job. The book expects you to show up and pay attention. Respect.

By the final stretch, when the story circles back toward the woods and then rips open something much darker connected to Jan’s past, Westron #2 goes from “solid noir mystery” to “oh no, this mythology has claws.” The closing image is the kind of visual gut-punch that makes you immediately want issue #3. No polite waiting. No “I’ll check it out eventually.” Nah. This thing ends with a monster-sized exclamation point, and suddenly the whole series feels like it is expanding from murder mystery into something nastier, older, and more mythic.

Westron #2 is a strong, confident second chapter that deepens the mystery, sharpens Jan Westron as a haunted lead, and proves this series has more on its mind than blood in the woods. It is noir with mud on its shoes, horror with folklore in its lungs, and a detective story where the past is not dead — it is just waiting in the dark with a grin.

Comic Crusaders gives Westron #2 a big, bloody, mystery-loving thumbs up. Shawn McBee, Maciej Jankowski, Nicolás Nieto, Matías De Vincenzo, Carla Somoza, Francisco Zamora, and David Anderson are building something sinister and addictive here. If you like crime stories with emotional scars, horror that creeps instead of just jumps, and comics that make the forest feel like it knows your sins, this one belongs on your radar.

CRUSADERS SCORE:
4 / 5
Recommended for mature readers who like noir, folk horror, disturbing mysteries, and comics that know how to keep secrets with style.

Story: Shawn McBee & Maciej Jankowski
Art: Nicolás Nieto, Matías De Vincenzo
Colors: Carla Somoza, Matías De Vincenzo
Letters: Francisco Zamora
Story Editor: David Anderson
Covers: Nicolás Nieto, Matías De Vincenzo, Dev, Erinthul, Arturo Garcia
Publisher: Fandom Limb Media

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