Skottie Young, the writer behind I Hate Fairyland and Bully Wars, is back with a new series at Image Comics called Middlewest. Check out a special full review after the jump.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of Hit-Girl #1 courtesy of Image Comics.
Opinions are my own.
The lands between the coasts are vast, slow to change, and full of hidden magics. Mistakes have been made, and in this NEW ONGOING SERIES, an unwitting adventurer searches for answers to quell a coming storm that knows his name. From writer SKOTTIE YOUNG (I HATE FAIRYLAND, Deadpool) and artist JORGE CORONA (NO. 1 WITH A BULLET) comes the tale of Abel, a young boy who must navigate an old land in order to reconcile his family's history.
As a big Skottie Young fan, I was shocked and saddened by the surprise I Hate Fairyland finale earlier this year. He quickly returned to shelves with Bully Wars, an all-ages comic ready to fill the Fairyland shaped hole in my heart. And then, we found out Young was going to have two series ongoing at the same time.
I was really looking forward to Middlewest. While Bully Wars feels like a PG story set within the same universe as I Hate Fairyland, Middlewest is unlike any of Young’s work that I’ve read before. There’s a more realistic, “serious” tone at play here and it makes the sci-fi elements all the more mysterious.
That’s a big word here, mysterious. In this first issue, our young her Abel does normal things like deliver papers and get in trouble with his friends, but he also encounters a talking fox and faces down a living storm all in a town where every building has giant hampster cage water bottles full of pink liquid attached to them. None of this has been explained yet, which makes everything all the more intriguing.
I Hate Fairyland was a very special and very different kind of book, and even though Middlewest feels very different it still feels very Skottie Young. As with I Hate Fairyland and Bully Wars, Young seems to have a knack for exploring troubled youth. I guess it’s fitting that his name is Young.
In this new sci-fi mystery series, our protagonist is a boy living alone with his abusive father - a relatable and very real character for a mysterious new series.
