In a world where governments hold all of the power in the world to exploit and destroy the lives of people bold enough to question them, there comes a time where few say that enough is enough and they stand against the corruption and the warmongering. In “Young Terrorists” #1, Matt Pizzolo and Amancay Nahuelpan take a scathing look at a group of young people whose lives have been destroyed by the corruption of American capitalism and who have decided to fight back.
Read on for our spoiler free review of “Young Terrorists” #1 to find out why this book needs to be on your radar.
Written by Matt Pizzolo
Amancay Nahuelpan
What if ‘The Smoking Man’ from The X-Files were a real person, and his daughter found out what he did for a living? The daughter of an assassinated globalist kingpin breaks out of an internment camp and leads her fellow escaped prisoners in a battle against an elitist conspiracy of shadow governments, megabanks, and military juntas in this edgy and subversive sci-fi thriller. Incendiary writer Matt Pizzolo and striking newcomer Amancay Nahuelpan unleash this tour-de-force that fearlessly assaults politics-as-usual. Young Terrorists continues the legacy of DMZ and The Invisibles as it manically rips the scab off life under the new world order and revels in the pus underneath.
With every new comic they publish, I find myself respecting Black Mask Studios more and more. Their sense of political activism through comics and their choice to forego the industrial hand-wringing that feels like it’s routinely choking the creativity out of the bigger publishers has lead to books that feel raw and powerful. The works they publish have the same raw emotional core that springs from an anger at a world full of injustice that many zines do. The only main difference is the books that Black Mask publishes often look a tad more professional than homemade zines. However, “Young Terrorists” #1 definitely taps into that creativity-from-emotion, that raw energy that makes their books feel so powerful.
“Young Terrorists” opens in a big way. And I’m not just talking about the fact that the first issue is an 80-page graphic novella. No, I’m talking about the fact that within the first ten minutes we’re introduced to a world of corporate and industrial espionage, brutal murder, child kidnappings and suicide bombings. “Young Terrorists” definitely lives up to its name and doesn’t hold any punches, but it’s not the kind of book built on shock factor with nothing to back it up. Every shocking moment that Pizzolo and Nahuelpan create is based in some way on events in the real world. That’s perhaps what makes them even more shocking is the knowledge that, while “Young Terrorists” is a work of fiction, the brutality that it explores is based on reality.
While this 80 page monster of a first issue may seem a little excessive at first, I think it was actually a genius idea thanks to the way the issue is structured. It presents almost four issues worth of content that introduces readers to the world of “Young Terrorists” in all its unflinching brutality as well as the cast of characters the series will follow. What makes the extended page count a good idea, in my eyes, is that Pizzolo and Nahuelpan use it to explore the backstories of the characters in a way that would take months if the content of this issue was broken up into smaller chunks. This issue largely follows Sera and Cesar and delves into the backstories and explores where they came from and how they both ended up in a sovereign neighbourhood in the heart of Detroit.
This exploration of Sera and Cesar’s backstory as well as what we learn of the histories of other characters like Baby and Jessi allows “Young Terrorists” to examine a lot of the world in just the first issue. From the Illuminati-esque shadowy corporations that secretly influence deaths and political success all over the world to how the system can degrade and destroy the lives of those that don’t fit into the neat ideal of the perfect American (read: straight, white, cis males in their 30s), there’s definitely a sense that Pizzolo has a lot to say about the modern world in his writing. It’s a scathing look at the grotesqueness of the 21st Century all ripped from news headlines and strung together with a compelling cast of characters. Most of this issue feels like vignettes tied together with common themes that build a sense of the world before it’s all brought together in the end with a tease of how this set-up can continue into a full series.
Continued belowIt’s not all brutal violence and death and corruption in “Young Terrorists.” Sure, that makes up a good 70% of the issue, making it a hell of a tough read and one I can only recommend to those with the stomach for that kind of thing, but there’s beauty here too. It’s an unconventional beauty, though, one that springs from the few moments of genuine human connection in the story. Pizzolo and Nahuelpan manage to insert moments of quiet connection in between all the violence, much like life in a lot of way.
It’s hard to call “Young Terrorists” a beautiful book, though. While Amancay Nahuelpan’s art is technically amazing and the sense of style and storytelling on display is impressive, the levels of violence and bloodshed that he showcases can be hard to stomach. Almost every character finds themselves stripped bare or brutalised in some way throughout the book as the world around them just chews them up and spits them out and Nahuelpan doesn’t exactly shy away from that. However, I was impressed that the artwork never felt exploitative in those scenes. Even when we see characters having sex, there’s never a sense that the artwork is there for the act to be leered at. It’s presented simply and shown as the kind of quiet connection between characters that I mentioned before. For a book full of brutal violence, never once does it feel lurid or exploitative.
Nahuelpan’s artwork is sharp and energetic, with heavy inks and a gritty edge to the violence. The world he presents is not a nice place to be. The colours by Jean-Paul Csuka help reinforce this fact by washing the pages in murky hues. The earthy tones are muted and while the first couple of chapters are marked by many warm, autumn-y tones and Cesar’s chapter is largely presented in cooler tones, this morphs into a world awash in sickly neons that bring a sense of otherworldlyness to the Young Terrorists’ Detroit enclave. Watching this shift in how enviroments are coloured brings a sense that as Sera and Cesar and the other characters remove themselves further from the system, they descend deeper into an underworld. Characters go from being coloured separately and realistically to being lit by singular hues that contrast against the background. The neon brings a pulpy feel to the final third of the book that reinforces just how removed they are from what passes as society these days.
In the end, “Young Terrorists” #1 may be a larger investment than many are willing to make thanks to the $6.99 pricetag, but there’s definitely a lot of artistry on display within and the makings of a fantastic new series. Pizzolo continues to prove himself as a writer, stretching himself with a varied cast of characters and a world in which every dark corner leads to newer, darker corners. Along with Amancay Nahuelpan’s fantastic artwork that brings the brutality of the book to life, “Young Terrorists” joins Black Mask’s line of counterculture comics proudly. It’s challenging and unflinching and has the potentinal to go some very interesting and very dark places.
Final Verdict: 7.9 – It won’t be for everyone and you certainly have to operate on the same counterculture wavelength as Pizzolo and Nahuelpan, but there’s a lot here to enjoy if you do.
