Category: Reviews

Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #2

Creative team: Story by Ivan Brandon; art by Marco Rudi

When I attended Alma College, we had kind of a Saturday-night ritual. After coming home from the parties and the non-stop bacchanalia that was my social life, my friends and I would retire to my dorm room and flip on my small, black-and-white TV set. After adjusting the antenna, one of the three stations I’d be able to pick up came fuzzily into view.

By the way. I’m not that old. I graduated in 1991.

One of the TV shows that we’d keep running into was The Prisoner.

Now, in case you’re not familiar, The Prisoner was a surreal series about a former secret agent who is held prisoner in a mysterious seaside village where his captors try to find out why he abruptly resigned from his job. It wasn’t until the end of the series that anyone was able to make heads or tails out of anything.

My friends and I were seeing re-runs. Skipping episodes. Drunk.

Think of watching Lost out-of-order. Through a fish tank.

We hated that show with a white-hot passion.

Reading Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape has brought back that same feeling to me of being in my dorm room, watching The Prisoner, trying to figure out WTF is going on.

And now I know what people mean when they say that there’s a fine line between love and hate.

There’s no doubt that writer Ivan Brandon is conjuring a Prisoner vibe with this title. But I’m not drunk reading this comic. And I’m a little more mature. And maybe a bit smarter.

And I like it.

Almost makes me yearn for that old black-and-white TV set.