Amara Bishop is a newly single mother with a long-buried past. Raised by an alcoholic father in a rundown trailer, Amara was a child when she learned to kill. And she hasn’t killed anyone since she was thirteen. When her aging mentor is murdered, and her daughter is threatened, that will soon change…
Miles To Go #1 is a hell of an opening chapter. From that very first scene, this thing reaches out and grabs you. There is a certain amount of shock value that we’ve been desensitized to, but there’s something especially disturbed about watching a pre-teen kid in capris and untied Chucks splattering some poor schmuck’s brains all over the wall. Flash forward a few decades, and the kid is all grown, struggling to co-parent her own daughter with her slob on an estranged husband. As you do.
B. Clay Moore does a brilliant job making us like Amara, despite her violent past. It’s the little details. The relationships, with their ugly quirky bits and rough patches. Trial separation, single motherhood, dying father… She’s amazingly relatable, leaving aside all the murder and whatnot.
The art is well suited to Moore’s script. Stephen Molnar loosens up his linework to employ a slightly sketchier style than we’re used to seeing in his toolbox. The characters emote with very subtle, but instantly recognizable gestures.
There’s the one scene, where Amara is clearly busted up at seeing her mentor lying in a hospital bed. You can read her exhausted, beat down emotional state just in the slightly furrowed brow, the slight downtick at one corner of her mouth. This is immediately followed by the subtlety of a man’s face who’s just suffered spontaneous testicular rupture.
This is one of the best opening chapters I’ve read in a minute. There’s a lot to unpack here, but it never feels too heavy, despite the dark and twisted nature of the thing. It’s a slick little dissertation on character driven crime.
Miles To Go #1, AfterShock Comics, 23 September 2020. Written by B. Clay Moore, art by Stephen Molnar, letters by Thomas Mauer, covers by Stephen Molnar and Francisco Francavilla, logo by Dave Sharpe.
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