Brilliant Trash #2 Review

The Boomtown Rats

Writer and Creator by: Tim Seeley
Story by: Tim Seeley and Steve Seeley
Art by: Priscilla Petraites
Publisher: Aftershock
Review by: Andrew McAvoy

The first issue of Brilliant Trash was the perfect set-up. It gave us the overarching concept, the high level overview, and the individual stories balanced out into a pretty special book. This issue picks up where the last one left off as we see how reporter Kennedy Avis gets on having been bestowed with the secrets of human evolution. Let's see what happens!

As she wakes from a vision of a past event set in China, Kennedy finds herself in the clutches of the God Hackers, a group of teenagers attempting to jailbreak their own bodies in the pursuit of superhuman powers. This is a pretty neat idea summed up by one of the characters who states, "God didn't give us what we wanted so we took it for ourselves". These guys seem like good Samaritans, but when they start wielding surgical scalpels about, the picture becomes less clear.

The comic then positions a competing party into the narrative; a mysterious group that is working to extract Kennedy for their own purposes. Jim, seemingly ex-military is the man tasked with that extraction by the sinister Mr Cromwell. There is something else at play here too, as Cromwell alludes to St Damian's Medical and their role in the story. Cromwell himself seems to be able to prematurely age young children in order to obtain visions and insight. He uses this to help Jim track down Kennedy, leaving the child who has helped him to locate her in a withered and frail state.

Although Jim is seemingly sided with Cromwell, there is enough in this book to make you realize that he isn't quite a bad guy. He has a "gun for hire with a heart" vibe about him. He seems to do a good thing in breaking Kennedy out of the hands of the God Hackers - but we aren't sure if those controlling him are quite as benign. The God Hackers themselves although seriously injured in this book may have a wider role as suggested by the individual name panels ascribed to them on the page above. If so I'm intrigued as they have the makings of a pretty entertaining group.

Bits and Pieces

The first issue of this title really bowled me over. The concept was intriguing and distilled nicely. This issue then delves deep into the nitty gritty and for me it lost something by way of clarity. While I could follow the first issue, this seemed to plunge into a level of detail that left me a bit confused as to the characters aims and objectives. That said, the title at least has depth, and although this issue wasn't as thrilling as the last issue it did enough to keep me interested and I'll definitely come back for the next issue to see how things develop.

6.6/10