The League of Volunteers #2

30/09/2011

This issue opens with Blood Rose (Lisa Sheridan) saving the life of a girl under threat from a group of almost vampiric creatures. Personally, I find her to be my favorite character thus far in the series, this great opening sequence being her intro. Lisa is a demon hunter who is in fact half demon herself. She aims to rid Ireland of it’s dark forces but can also channel her own dark power when needed. She’s eventually aided by Glimmerman and Archer, and then later Druid, at which point we feel the League of Volunteers has really been formed. The villain of the piece, Bocanach, attempts to summon his evil army of darkness in his attempt to end the age of man, but must first defeat the great warrior, Lugh, who protects the Hill of Tara.

The pacing in this issue was sublime. The previous issue wasn’t bad by any means, but there’s really a sense that the anti has been upped for this chapter. Last time we saw a lot of setup, which is understandable and it was dealt with well. This time around sees it’s fair share of action and the final page slash suggest even more in the coming third issue. The characters of Blood Rose and Lugh really shine and the antagonist Bocanach becomes a shade more impressive and formidable as we see him in action.

The panel layouts were really nicely done, very clean and straight forward, working well with the artwork, which is dark and sort of sketchy. Keegan’s style again impresses greatly, the irishness of the story comes across well wihtout being too overbearing. There’s some really nice splashes here too, one of our first look of Blood Rose, the other double page splash depicting the ancient time when the dark forces last rose up. The final page splash was really cool too.

A solid and entertaining issue.

Tags: atomic diner comics, barry keegan, league of volunteers, rob curley