This Ends Tonight #1: What Happens In Vegas

I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t even going to look at this title. What little marketing I saw indicated a violent crime gore fest and that’s just not my thing. We here though because I enjoy Gerry Duggan as a writer and I really enjoyed Seventh Son from the creative team involved here so when it showed up in the list as a new #1 for the week I took a look and I am really glad I did.

I like a strange twist or a different hook and that’s exactly Duggan, Mao and Windom give us with this one. Two sisters Anna and Katie are out celebrating Katie’s 21st birthday in Vegas style suddenly find themselves in a full blown assassination attempt. Anna knows what’s going on but Katie is completely unaware as they fight and flee their way across the city. Anna reveals Katie’s true family history to her. It involves a second moon that’s actually a doorway, a war between families and a peace made by swopping children. It’s all a little much for Katie but as the violent pursuit goes on, memories and older instincts are triggered. It’s a blood spattered twist on elvish lore that completely subverts the whole elves are pacifists or even from earth trope in the best way possible. A bloody family feud which spills onto the streets in graphic violence and psychedelic poisoned detail. In other words it’s weird as hell. When the dust settles the sisters are alive but only just and the second moon is back in the sky with the promise of more violent weirdness to come. The script is tight, and writing team tempers the violence with some really funny dark humor. They also dangle just enough lore of this secret world in front of you to pull you in and by the end you want to know more and what fate awaits the sisters.

Jae lee excels at bringing the weird and violent to life so he’s the perfect artist for this story. Sharp angles you can cut yourself on everywhere. That’s his style and it works marvelously well here. However for me the real genius of this opener is how the issue is paneled. There is only one conventional splash. The rest of the pages are all made to resemble broken glass or mosaic. No perfect squares or rectangle’s to be seen, no panel the same. It adds marvelously to the chaos and drama on page and I feel is also a subtle comment on Kate’s world that she knows coming apart. June Chung masterfully colors Lee as always and the yellow eyes she gives Anna and her sister are the kind of little fantasy element touch that makes the blend of what the scripts doing all the more impactful. Joe Sabino has fun with all the violence and chaos in terms of sound effects lettering.