REVIEW: Eden's Fall TPB - COMIC CRUSADERS

Eden’s Fall is a tale of vengeance and punishment, but not one of justice. I don’t think justice comes anywhere near the hidden town of Eden. The trade paperback collects the books of the crossover series starring characters from Image’s Think Tank, The Tithe and Postal books. Don’t read them, don’t worry. Even though the book refers to events from each of those series, it is self-contained enough that you won’t need to follow any of them before reading this.

More conveniently, the first issues of each of these books is included at the end. You can decide which, if any, you want to follow-up on.

Eden, Wyoming, is a town that doesn’t exist. It doesn’t appear on Google. It has no Starbucks. It doesn’t even show up on GPS. It is a town of criminals who are on their last chance. It run by a criminal with deep pockets and strong ties to corrupt people in DC. She runs the town as the mayor and doesn’t take any trouble from anyone who comes there.

And her newest resident, Thornton, stinks of trouble. Thornton, a Christian terrorist who blew up churches and made it look like Muslims were responsible, was hidden there, by one of Mayor Shiffron’s political cronies. Unfortunately, the FBI agents assigned to hunt him down, won’t give up even after being kicked off the case and out of the bureau.

The former agents, Jimmy and Dwayne ”“ along with the hacker, Samantha, decide to sneak one of themselves in. They call in favors from a special researcher in a government think tank, who designs special technology. He designs some tech that allows them to track and get video from Eden, so they don’t lose touch while Jimmy hunts Thornton down.

Unfortunately, none of them have counted on how resourceful Shiffron is and Jimmy has to make a deal with the devil for his chance to carry out his self-appointed mission.

This book has to manage a lot of tricks to keep the story on track and running smoothly. For the most, they pull this off. Each of the source books they are pulling from have very different tones and very distinct characters. It takes a lot of skill to preserve these tones and characters while telling a fourth story that has to hold up on its own. There are some plot glitches, but for the most part Matt Hawkins (VICE, Tales of Honor) and Brian Hill (Romulus, Postal) manage to keep juggling their bowling balls and chainsaws.

Atilio Rojo does a great job with the art. Usually, when you have a story that is so morally murky, the art tries to match it by becoming dark and shadowy. RojoÂ makes every scene bright and jeweled toned. Those choices make it more shocking when the violence springs up and splashes across the screen.

This book is really worth picking up if you are in the mood for something different from the usual men in tights book. You may decide to follow-up with the individual books the characters come from. But even if you don’t you will have a story that is worth reading in its own right.

[yasr_overall_rating]

Writers: Matt Hawkins and Brian Hill
Artists: Atilio Rojo
Publisher: Image/Top Cow

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Andy Hall

Sent from the future by our Robot Ape overlords to preserve the timeline. Reading and writing about comics until the revolution comes. All hail the Orangutan Android Solar King!