This unapologetically ultraviolent story will surely amass a cult following of those who love female-powered badassery.
A blood-soaked dystopian tale about overpopulation and one woman’s painful but cathartic journey of self-discovery.
Set in near-future New York City, the premise is as simple as it is brutally effective: In an effort to combat rampant overpopulation, the city instituted a “controversial randomized extermination program” called the Kill Train initiative. Professional assassins murder all passengers on a random subway train by the end of the ride. The odds of being on a Kill Train are 1 in 10,000, so most of the populace are willing to take the chance when traveling throughout the city. Enter Vanessa Crow, a struggling single mother with a teenage daughter who is on the precipice of a mental breakdown. When circumstances force her onto a subway train, she knows the odds are in her favor as 580 passengers were just slaughtered on a Kill Train the day before. She fatefully meets an old college friend, Corwin, who reminds Vanessa of the badass woman she used to be. But when the two friends discover that they’re on a Kill Train, Vanessa is forced to battle much more than a group of psychotic killers. Powered by an intriguing, albeit absurd, concept and complemented by visually stunning (and potentially traumatizing) illustrations by Martina Niosi—dismembered and decapitated bodies, intestines hanging like party streamers, etc.—it’s Vanessa’s inner journey through past trauma that makes this graphic novel so memorable. Her problematic relationship with her mother, her unstable financial situation, and her tumultuous but intimate bond with her daughter make her a character that readers can not only understand and identify with but also root for as she fights for her life. Ass-kicking motherly characters like Terminator’s Sarah Connor and Alien’s Ellen Ripley have nothing on Cuartero-Briggs’ Crow.
This unapologetically ultraviolent story will surely amass a cult following of those who love female-powered badassery.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781545817827
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A clever and timely conversation on reclaiming identity and acknowledging one’s full worth.
Superman confronts racism and learns to accept himself with the help of new friends.
In this graphic-novel adaptation of the 1940s storyline entitled “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” from The Adventures of Superman radio show, readers are reintroduced to the hero who regularly saves the day but is unsure of himself and his origins. The story also focuses on Roberta Lee, a young Chinese girl. She and her family have just moved from Chinatown to Metropolis proper, and mixed feelings abound. Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane’s colleague from the Daily Planet, takes a larger role here, befriending his new neighbors, the Lees. An altercation following racial slurs directed at Roberta’s brother after he joins the local baseball team escalates into an act of terrorism by the Klan of the Fiery Kross. What starts off as a run-of-the-mill superhero story then becomes a nuanced and personal exploration of the immigrant experience and blatant and internalized racism. Other main characters are White, but Black police inspector William Henderson fights his own battles against prejudice. Clean lines, less-saturated coloring, and character designs reminiscent of vintage comics help set the tone of this period piece while the varied panel cuts and action scenes give it a more modern sensibility. Cantonese dialogue is indicated through red speech bubbles; alien speech is in green.
A clever and timely conversation on reclaiming identity and acknowledging one’s full worth. (author’s note, bibliography) (Graphic fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77950-421-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.
As Ireland devolves into a brutal police state, one woman tries to preserve her family in this stark fable.
For Eilish Stack, a molecular biologist living with her husband and four children in Dublin, life changes all at once and then slowly worsens beyond imagining. Two men appear at her door one night, agents of the new secret police, seeking her husband, Larry, a union official. Soon he is detained under the Emergency Powers Act recently pushed through by the new ruling party, and she cannot contact him. Eilish sees things shifting at work to those backing the ruling party. The state takes control of the press, the judiciary. Her oldest son receives a summons to military duty for the regime, and she tries to send him to Northern Ireland. He elects to join the rebel forces and soon she cannot contact him, either. His name and address appear in a newspaper ad listing people dodging military service. Eilish is coping with her father’s growing dementia, her teenage daughter’s depression, the vandalizing of her car and house. Then war comes to Dublin as the rebel forces close in on the city. Offered a chance to flee the country by her sister in Canada, Eilish can’t abandon hope for her husband’s and son’s returns. Lynch makes every step of this near-future nightmare as plausible as it is horrific by tightly focusing on Eilish, a smart, concerned woman facing terrible choices and losses. An exceptionally gifted writer, Lynch brings a compelling lyricism to her fears and despair while he marshals the details marking the collapse of democracy and the norms of daily life. His tonal control, psychological acuity, empathy, and bleakness recall Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). And Eilish, his strong, resourceful, complete heroine, recalls the title character of Lynch’s excellent Irish-famine novel, Grace (2017).
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802163011
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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