This week brings the final issue of the Jeff Parker/Steve Leiber mini: Underground. Underground has been a tale of two park rangers running from a group of thugs intent on taking over a cave in order to make it a tourist attraction. Fortunately for our main heroine, she’s a general spelunker, so navigating the cave shouldn’t be that hard… right?
Never the less, what has gone from a thuggish misunderstanding has quickly turned into an adventure where life and death are quite literally on the line, and the final issue brings forward the tension that had been building for the past four issues.
With the final issue on stands tomorrow, how does it play out?
(As a note, spoilers for the finale are discussed in this review)
I was confused about Underground at first, because in the first issue or so it wasn’t clear to me. I thought I was getting into a story like the Descent, but with less of a psychological/horror aspect. What I got was a story about cave spelunking under terror that I actually quite enjoyed. It’s not a title that I would’ve expected to like at first, but by the end I was glad that I read it.
As far as the story goes, I’m a bit torn on the ending. To me, the whole point of the story was saving nature and protecting the purity of this cave from the people in town who wanted to change it. We’ve seen people get shot and (accidentally) hung due to the cave. When our heroes finally make it out the other end alive, it’s a very triumphant moment for me as the reader and them as the character. After the villain is knocked down though, and we see that the cave was made into a tourist attraction anyway is where I diverge from where I would have liked to see the story end up. To me, having the characters Wesley and Seth give up their role as park rangers to help facilitate the cave becoming a tourist attraction to show their adventure was not where I would’ve guessed the story would end. After someone got burned alive and another got hung, I would have imagined that the cave would’ve been proved to be too hazardous of an area to make into a tourist attraction, thus getting what Wesley wanted the entire time. To have her decide to move with the town, as much as the reasoning within the story made sense, seemed like a poor ending. I am glad, however, that the two ended up together, which made a very nice wrap up for their plot line that had been brewing since the beginning of the story.
This book to me, though, is why I can understand why a lot of people are loving Jeff Parker lately. I’ve been pretty open in my general dislike for the Agents of Atlas. Here, though, Parker does an amazing job of taking these two characters, especially Wesley, and having you love them by the end of the book. With a book like this, a urgency as well as strong leads are important, and Parker definitely has both present. In fact, Wesley is easily one of the best female leads Parker has ever written, within as much of his work I am familiar with. While she starts off in a rather odd situation (trying to figure out what to do post-one night stand), by issue 5 she’s definitely a strong female character that I believe a lot of people could identify with. She quite literally carries the story with her as she deftly manuevers throughout the dangerous and dark caves, and it’s a nice set of pace when the female takes the lead over the male in a tale like this. In fact, that’s probably the biggest aspect of which I am a fan of – that it’s a “go, girl power!” title without a) being overly cheesy with a hint of mild sexism and b) being some kind of backwards propaganda for feminism. Either way, bravo to Parker on a great character arc for just five issues.
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Good god, though. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that the real star of the book is Lieber. Steve Lieber has had an absolute playground to work with here, and he has done an amazing job crafting the danger through the art. One of the most difficult things when writing a story that primarily takes place in a cave is showing the dangers of the cave. The entire book has been an excellent use of color to show the different lighting within the cave, and especially twoards the end when the cave gets more and more narrow. I may be bold in saying this, but his style of artwork is about as close as you can get to someone emulating Will Eisner very well. I realize some people might look at me odd, but I do believe Lieber has a similar style to the comic book champion, especially in the faces. Never the less, the book is worth the read for Lieber’s art alone, and I feel that people who come in as Jeff Parker fans will, like me, leave as Steve Lieber fans.
All in all, I think this is where Parker shines: in creator-owned character driven stories that aren’t typical comic books. There’s nothing superheroic about this title, and the down to earth nature of the book reads more natural to Parker. I am very pleased that my initial expectations about the book weren’t all met by the end, and having a story like this still maintain a sense of unpredictability is a very good thing. And of course, the artwork is just mindblowingly great. While the greatest moment of the book happened in (I believe) issue 3, Lieber does maintain consistently great throughout.
Final Verdict: 8.4 – Buy
As a side note, I’d liek to re-mention that the final issue does come out tomorrow. For those of you who had not been picking up the title as it came out, you should know that the trade is quite literally around the corner, so you won’t have to wait long to read the whole thing. I would recommend seeking out the back issues though. Issue 3 was particularly great.
