Increasingly prolific Christopher Sebela and avant-garde illustrator Chris Visions have concocted a swirling lava lamp of a premiere issue in Aftershock’s “Trust Fall” that’s as psychedelically beautiful as it is sometimes difficult to comprehend.
Written by Christopher SebelaCover by Chris Visions
Illustrated by Chris Visions
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-ElhouAsh Parsons was raised to believe she’s special. As someone with a quirk of genetics that lets her teleport things, she’s the golden goose of her family.
Her family is the foundation of a struggling criminal outfit trying to get ahead in the world and Ash is able to pop out whole fleets of cars and entire bank vaults. But while she can teleport valuables and her accomplices, she can’t teleport herself – making every job a trust fall with her family there to catch her and escort her to safety. It’s a perfect setup but as things begin to change and the Parsons move up in the world, Ash will find herself pushing back against her golden cage, with deadly results.
The solicitation text above for “Trust Fall” #1 is exacting in its description of the series premise, laying out the principal character’s uniqueness and the conflict she faces, and it’s required reading before launching into this dizzying first issue that sacrifices clarity for storytelling bravado. Seriously, I still don’t understand what’s happening in the issue’s first page. I expect this first issue to be a galvanizing read for many, on par with the Laphams’s “Lodger” in terms of its ability to suffer fools. It demands the closest of reads, but while David Lapham’s precise monochromatic approach to his crime stories at least throws readers a bone, Visions’s thick-lined kaleidoscopic art in this issue seems intent on making readers work for every ounce of sequential storytelling comprehension.
None of this is necessarily a bad thing. There are some clever ideas at work here particularly from narration boxes used to define familiar terms within the context of this vaguely futuristic urban world. Terms like Family, Bad Guys, Sanctuary, Home, and the title of the book itself (which readers will recognize as being unchanged from the exercise that is de rigueur in family therapy and team-building scenarios) are given new spins, and these definitions do the heavy-lifting exposition while world balloons float across the pages in almost Robert Altman-level overlapping non-sequiturs. We also get new story-specific and decidedly less familiar terms like The Forbidden, The High Castle and Dead Flag. The city itself (or anything outside the family compound) is referred to as The Wild. It’s fitting then that the series’s first installment is entitled ‘New Meanings to Old Words.’ Make sure you read your credits pages, kids.
Ash is this story’s heroine, and her Quirk (another new but familiar term) which I first assumed to be some form of concussion blast before doubling back to check out the prerequisite solicitation reading assignment is a nifty bit of dazzle dazzle in the otherwise softly colored book. Ash is a cool customer. In addition to being her fledgling crime family’s secret weapon she also seems like the baby, amplyifying the need for the measures that the family enacts to protect her. Visions does a remarkable job with capturing her unique appearance as well as those of the other colorful members of the family with a remarkable economy of swirling Sharpie-sized lines. It’s the gift of a master of caricature. The panel borders sometimes slash across the pages at dutch angles, and Visions’s use of panel layouts within single page splashes is inspired even if it may leave readers a bit confused at times. Predominately, Visions opts for a stacked series of panoramic panels that allow for no doubt on the sequential story progression, and the creative use of shifting perspective keeps the proceedings intently interesting. But the lingering effect of Visions’s artwork is his ample use of purple and pink hues as if every light has been draped in a delicately regal gauze.
Sebela’s script throttles forward alongside Visions’s kinetic artwork. Even in the quiet moments, there’s an air of electricity. A family meaning is laden with suspense and threats of violence, and Visions’s renders the family’s Don as an imposing shades-wearing force of nature while Sebela’s script manages to strike a balance between his love of family and underlying menace. Sebela nails these characters’ unique voices, and it’s a welcome thing for a script that could have used a bit more exposition to get acquainted with the major players, but the book ultimately reads like the family that it portrays: big, loud, and messy. It’s completely fitting. The book’s worst offense is that it doesn’t give readers enough time to catch up to its breakneck story. While the creators give us six pages of what Ash’s life is like day in and day out, it could easily be a similar story for any young woman with an overprotective father. The ironic tension comes in the family’s need to employ the super-powered Ash make quick work of heists that put her in harm’s way the most. Ash is also instantly likable, and her family, minus their criminal dealings and penchant for violence, are not unlike any other big family with children jockeying for their parents’ favor and bickering over long-held griefs.
In the end, “Trust Fall” #1 does its damnedest to to carve out an intriguing niche amidst the increasingly congested crime genre. The problem usually seems to come when the effort to make the story unique ends up dropping the thread that brought readers to the table in the first place, but there’s definitely enough here to keep fans of tales of organized crime invested while adding a bit of metahuman flair to the proceedings. If the story of formidable young woman is the selling point, Ash’s story is certainly intriguing, relatable even. She’s the criminal who by her very gift for mayhem and circumstances is often left holding the bag. For her, the responsibility that comes with her great power is to her family, at least for now.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – “Trust Fall” #1 may signal the beginning of a series that will be a uniquely acquired taste, but the more it rolls around on your palate, the more you appreciate its complexity.
