“A.D.: After Death” wraps up this week with a 100 page examination on life, death, courage and everything in between. Read on for our spoiler free review of this grand finale.
Written by Scott Snyder
Illustrated by Jeff Lemire
MINI-SERIES FINALE! Jonah Cooke is on the run from a future he helped create, a future where death has been genetically cured. Yet he’s finally come to accept that no matter how long he lives, he’ll never escape his past. And now he’s done the one thing that may put everyone left alive in jeopardy. The shocking conclusion of the sci-fi epic by two of comics’ most acclaimed creators is here.
What happens in a world where no one can die? What happens to society? What happens to the human mind? Does immortality hinder the most human of emotions? These questions and more are things that are addressed throughout the entirety of “A.D. After Death”. This week, the series comes to an end and it does that in just as fascinating a fashion as it how it started. “A.D. After Death” #3 is heavy and loaded with huge ideas, but ultimately is the story of this one man and his own fears.
“A.D. After Death” #3 picks up with Jonah still on his mission to get Claire back down into the old world. Between this action, we get more snippets from Jonah Cooke’s journals and everything comes to a head when Jonah is confronted with the truth about his life and every cycle he’s lived through.
“A.D. After Death” #3 is a finale with punch. This series started things off with a very personal story from Jonah and it ends that way. Snyder and Lemire beautifully crafted this deep, philosophical story but delivered an easy to follow narrative. Most of your time reading this will feel like reading a novel and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Snyder’s writing is very good and because he’s still working in the confines of a comic book, he gets to the point. The prose moves quick but doesn’t lack detail and the organization of the journal entries kept the momentum going in a great way. What is held off until this issue, particularly Claire’s story, made this issue feel more urgent.
“A.D. After Death” #3 continues to tackle the ideas of immortality and human connection. Snyder in particular examines the longevity of human memory and the connections that are lost if we could theoretically live for centuries and what it leads to is a sense on longing in Jonah. Because of his journals, he’s retained a lot and due to this, we’re draw into a story full of loneliness and sadness despite a world that has defeated all the things that kill us. It should be perfect for Jonah but instead he dwells on his losses and in particular, who’s he lost. Time is not even a real thing now for these people and this final issue delivers a great twist that highlights that in a very heartbreaking manner. In a story with huge ideas and concepts, it’s important to realize that never once did “A.D. After Death” skip out on telling an actual story, it just chose to do it a different way.
“A.D.” was never a conventional comic book by any sense. It spent most of its time in prose which means that for many pages with the issue, Lemire isn’t doing conventional comic book art. Instead, what he gets to do is much more complicated. He and letterer Steve Wands are tasked with making prose visually interesting and they do a really good job at it. Wands opts for a type font that you’d see with a typewriter so it’s readable but also easy to do something with. Lemire does wonderful work with simple but effective illustrations on each prose page. It’s easy to spot Lemire art and each sort of snapshot on these pages is full with a deeper significance that enhances the exact right moment in the prose. For example, there is a page where Jonah is writing again about when his mother died and he comes to a realization about what she experienced in that moment. Lemire uses a similar expression from earlier in this series but frames it differently and adds in his urgency and sort of horror in her eyes. That’s the lone image on that page and this is the kind of visual addition to these prose pages that makes “A.D. After Death” #3 a really interesting experiment on what comic books are.
Continued belowLemire does get to create some standard comic book pages as well with sequential art free from prose and he does exactly what I expect from him. I’m a huge fan of his work and a lot of that comes down to how much he does with his characters. Not a lot is said despite a very straight forward explanation that comes from the series “villain,” so Lemire gets to do a lot as far as visually conveying what Jonah and Claire are feeling. Lemire’s work has grown and all the emotion comes through in the eyes of Jonah as everything really begins to dawn on him. There’s raw emotion in every inch of each of these panels that varies from desperation to fear to acceptance. It’s amazing work with the kind of otherwordly watercolors Lemire is known for.
“A.D. After Death” #3 is a near perfect finale for a story that didn’t rely on twists and turns. It relied, instead, on ideas but managed to deliver a story that will stick with you.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – A provocative finale that will stay with you for a long time after closing the book.
