“A walk through hell” pretty accurately sums up the experience of reading most of Garth Ennis’ recent output: his second World of Tanks book, the DC books Dastardly and Muttley and Sixpack and Dog-Welder, his other Aftershock book Jimmy’s Bastards, which was a book-length Viz joke, and now this one!
Two Feds go into a warehouse only to find that it’s an inescapable labyrinth of nightmares and/or a portal to Hell. So how does Ennis manage to take any excitement out of this potential setup and turn it into the most boring comic ever?
It’s mostly a police procedural with the two Feds going over the case details of a wealthy pedo, trying to catch him out by going through paperwork and blah blah blah. It’s not helped by Ennis being vague for the most part and the bad guy being a bland businessman/sociopath who doesn’t say or do anything interesting.
These flashbacks are broken up with moments of pointless horror in the warehouse with Ennis in general trying too hard to shock the reader out of the lethargy of his dull story, like the opening scene which involves a baby getting shot in the head. People getting shot in the head is basically the theme of this book - seriously, I think the number of people who get shot in the head here is in the double digits!
There’s no real plot or story or character arcs, it’s just Ennis switching between boring police procedural and boring repetitive and gratuitous horror. I’m amazed a writer as talented as Garth Ennis can produce a book as dreary as A Walk Through Hell and it’s only because he’s a name writer that he can keep putting out one terrible comic after another like this.
Aftershock remains the dumping ground of unsellable comics passed on by the likes of the Big 2 and Image - walk right on by A Walk Through Hell!
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