Created by Joe Ahern, Mike Bullock and Ed Catto
Story by Mike Bullock
Art by Jose Massaroli
Colors by Bob Pedroza
Lettering by Josh Aitken
This is not an overly happy comic book; let’s face it, what has happened with the child armies in Africa is not a fun story to read. Savage Beauty though brings out the classic revenge and stop the horrifying crimes against tribes, women, children and men in various places in Africa. This comic is not for kids, but if you want a good revenge and redemption story set in the heart of some of the darkest moments of history in the African Continent, then this is the comic book you want to read. The first issue is disturbing touching on issues you just do not see in regular comics.
The comic book starts off hopeless, as a tribal warrior kidnaps kids, women, kills men and blows up villages. In the first few pages you really get some of the most disturbing imagery in comics today. While they don’t show everything, there is nothing left to the imagination; your mind’s eye does much worst to the victims than the comic book could ever do. Then we break off to a young white woman and a black woman who are touring Africa and seeing the sights. The stark contrast between what the tourists sees and what the reality of living in the more war torn parts of Africa could not be any clearer to the reader, what is happening on both sides of the story line is simply wrong by western standards.
Then comes the revenge bit of the story line, just as things could not get any worst, people from the militia start to disappear and die. Which leads the military leader to question what is going on as he rampages through the militia camp unable to find his own troops. The rest of the comic book is pretty fast paced, with people in the People’s Resistance Army which is a really disgusting bunch of thugs posing as a para-military militia getting killed off right and left, as the heroine Anaya (who is both black and white in this series) simply proceeds to kick butt and right the wrongs that are going on in the story line.
This really is a disturbing comic book in the initial set of pages; you see things that make this an awesome independent comic book because it touches on issues that happen, but we never see on the news. Honestly few people, let alone companies would take on the story line of child warriors, rape, genocide, and thugs trying to take over a country. I think only Moonstone would print a comic book with this kind of theme. The good part is we get our redemption as well, we see two pretty kick ass women kicking butt and taking names while they free captives that have been put into slavery, and kill off the bad guys. Bad guys abound in this series, and it is easy to identify them because they make you very uncomfortable with what they are doing in the pages of this comic book. Seriously good comic, and well worth reading.
Going to rate this five of five stars, it is brave in its story line, it is bold in terms of addressing some of the more horrific ways we treat each other, and generally has an uncomfortable start. I am also going to praise the people who but this together, very brave, and big props to Moonstone for actually printing this comic book. Disturbing, but well worth adding to your physical comic book collection.
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