Officially, this is a review for The Last of Us: American Dreams #2. That being said, I don’t see how I can do a true review of this comic without discussing both its predecessor, The Last of Us: American Dreams #1, and saying at least a little about the upcoming game, The Last of Us. Lots of stuff in this review, so keep reading!
First, a little about the game: The Last of Us is an upcoming game from Naughty Dog (creators of Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot, and the Uncharted series) for the Playstation 3. In the game, out June 14, 2013, you play as Joel as he traverses the post-apocalyptic United States with his young companion, Ellie. The world has been ravaged by a deadly fungus, and the United States has devolved to a number of quarantined cities under martial law. Joel is tasked with bringing Ellie to a resistance group called the Fireflies while surviving in a very wild America teeming with fungus-spreading, humanoid creatures that certainly nothing like plain old zombies at all. No sirree, completely different.
The comics are a prelude, following not Joel, but Ellie, and the events that lead her to where I assume we’ll meet her in the game. It’s a very interesting introduction to the setting, as Ellie, in a contrast to the game’s main character, grew up in this post-apocalyptic world. Whereas Joel remembers the world being as we know it, the comics give us a chance to see what it would be like for someone who has only ever known the world this way.
The comic is written by Neil Druckmann, who is also the creative director for the game, and Faith Erin Hicks, who is also the artist. Since this is officially not about the first comic, I’ll leave it brief: we get introduced to Ellie and her school situation. She’s fierce, obstinate and headstrong. I like her, especially because I think her lack of trust and her distaste for authority figures will make her an interesting travelling companion for the older, more experienced Joel. We also meet Riley, who is basically the same girl, but with less of a temper and more rebellious.
The second issue was better than the first in my opinion. So you get the full scale of what I mean by that, you should know the first printing of issue 1 sold out. Gone. They are all owned. They’re doing a second printing, out the same day as the second issue. The difference for me is simple: the first one is introductory and basic, but this issue, we get a peak at the darkness behind the world. In typical teenage fashion, Ellie and Riley sneak out to go to the mall, albeit an abandoned mall. We get a beautiful, yet creepy scene from Ellie’s imagination of what it was like before, during, and after the apocalypse. It really makes me hope the game gets the same morbidly fascinating looks at how some of the areas the player explores undergo that transformation.
I highly recommend this series if you like action-adventure/horror games, or have PS3 and the money for the game when it comes out. I can’t speak for the overall quality of the game, but Neil Druckmann has shown his prowess as a writer in this series thus far, and Naughty Dog tends to make good games. If you don’t think you’ll buy the game for one reason or another (my lack of a PS3 being a good reason for me not to), it’s still a good story, but it’ll also make you a little depressed about all the fun you’ll miss out on. But please, whatever you do, there are going to be four issues, and like this one they will all be $3.99. Don’t buy the trade paperback for $16.99 and waste a $1.03. My inner mathematician will tell my outer mathematician to hunt you down and beat you up
Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, would like to recommend that his fellow Red Shirt Crew editor, Chase, never read these comics, as they take place in a destroyed Boston. Holmes also feels obligated to inform the readers that there is a bit of swearing, and that if you don’t want to read that kind of language, you should not be reading these comics. You can find him on twitter at @BStreetHolmes or e-mail him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.
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