Villordsutch reviews Shotgun Wedding #2…
“Mike Stone wants nothing more than to marry the woman of his dreams. Denise is smart, sexy, teaches the second grade, and loves Mike more than anything in the world. What she doesn’t know is that Mike is one of the world’s top assassins and was once engaged to a fellow assassin named Chloe. And when Mike abandoned Chloe on their wedding day, she vowed revenge…”
It’s an oddity this comic. As you’re reading it your wondering, ‘How many pages are actually in it?’ as the amount of story being delivered to you here by William Harms is rather a lot. You’re midway through and under the belief that you’ve possibly been undercharged for a special as this comic is jam-packed, then looking down you realise you are only at page 22 of roughly 28 pages of story, and you think ‘That’s not possible!?’.
All of the above is true. This comic clearly warrants more than one read as there is an awful lot going on in here and what is going on is very, very good. Unfortunately, due to time being the spiteful cow that she is I missed out on Issue #1, however for casual readers this isn’t apparently a major concern as I was able to glean from both the blurb and this current issue clearly what was going with these pages.
It’s difficult to recap this issue without giving away too much of what unfolded as it is that tightly threaded together I could easily spoil something by chance; though I can say that we see what Chloe gave up for Mike and it was a bit more than her wedding day bliss, and we can see why revenge may be top of her list. We also get to see the mission where it all goes wrong for Chloe and Mike and the failed eBay bidding for a PTSD’ed Mike. You may consider this not a very good sales pitch but when you get inside this issue you’ll be glad I kept it short.
Edward Pun is the man left in charge of the art (excellent cover art too) and settles for a black and white theme is rather impressive in its look from shadows to fine details; you’re either carried with great speed with the action drawn in the panel or held in dread with looming shadows. What’s interesting is the way Edward turns normal mundane scenes into something rather ominous – one sticks out in mind with Denise’s eyes covered by shadow as she attempts to comfort Mike, especially as it cuts to the scene of what appears to be Mike’s dad with a bullet hole in his forehead.
If you wanted to start Shotgun Wedding and missed out with Issue #1 you have still got time to catch up by grabbing #2, so rejoice and make a beeline for your comic book store (or your online retailer). You’ll be making a good decision.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
Originally published April 10, 2014. Updated December 13, 2019.
