We Stand On Guard #2
If you want to read the review of We Stand on Guard #1 you can Click Here for that review.
So we talked a little bit back in the review for issue #1 about how much I love Vaughan’s writing, so I feel like we should jump ahead into the actual review of We Stand On Guard #2
Spoilers Ahead
We open up issue #2 with a flashback from Amber’s past. We’re seeing a group of soldiers bust into an elderly families home in Dauphin, Manitoba Canada in 2013. I had to look up where Dauphin was. It’s a few hundred miles north of North Dakota, and north west of Winnipeg. This is a year after bombs have been dropped. It’s implied that there is some sort of American occupation. A hunting rifle is found in the couples home, so they are taken to “the camps.” The couple are loaded into military trucks and taken away. We see then that Amber and her brother were hiding in doghouses in the couples back yard.
The scene jumps back to the present, where the Chief is asking Amber if she will be coming with them or not. They have to get out of there pretty quick, before the Americans come looking for their mech. A huge vehicle, large enough to carry the mech with them, shows up with “Highway” driving.
Amber must be blindfolded if the Two-Four are going to take her back to base with them. When they take the blindfold off of her, they are in the Two-Four’s huge base.
When they get to the base they offer Amber some food or a shower. She decides to have a shower first. And we have a somewhat creepy scene where Dunn and his coywolf (half coyote half wolf) are watching her shower. He tells her that he is just looking for scars where the yanks could have implanted trackers. Dunn and his husband had found this coywolf on their property years ago.
The Chief and LePage, had stayed behind to cover the tracks of the giant transport the Two-Four have. They see a flight overhead and Chief tells LePage to get out of there. Afterwhich Chief is confronted by several American soldiers. They tell her to put her weapon down, but she decides to shoot instead. This causes them all to shoot her, but unfortunately, or fortunately, however you see it, she isn’t dead. So they are taking her back to the “Basement.”
This is where the issue ends.
We get a little bit of development into some of these Two-Four characters, and a little bit more on how much the Americans are jerks in this story.
The art is still great in this issue. I can see I’m going to be enjoying Skroce throughout this series.
I’m still very into the story, which is always good when you read the second of any series. The second can really make or break something. This one kept me on edge, and excited to turn the page to see what else is coming up.
Still feeling like this is at least a 8 out of 10 jalapeños.
Nothing too crazy yet. Just good storytelling, world building, and character development.
