Art by: Johnnie Christmas
Published by: Image Comics
Safe Haven, that promised land of ‘sticking it to “the man”, of parricide, too many guns and a motley crew of urchins with itchy trigger finger. This second volume of Sheltered: A Pre-Apocalyptic 
Tale was never going to be a ‘happily ever after’ event; in the penultimate issue of this series, the pint sized maniacs are staring down the barrel to the very bitter end. This air of fatalism has been a grim passenger throughout, we know it is going to end badly for the residents of Safe Haven, yet we hang around to see if the most unlikely of events can transpire – that the government don’t crush them into a bloody pulp.
With the heavy foreshadowing, even if we were unable to fathom the natural end point of the tale, it would take a huge suspension of logic to be unaware of how this is going to play out. While the narrative is efficient, Brisson steps us through the motions, but we are not compelled, or driven, by the story. It’s like a car crash in slow motion; we see the events, we know that twisted metal, torn flesh and oodles of blood await. Despite the urgent action on the page, there is something of the dying moments of a party about this issue. The party has had the high point, some of the participants have passed out, other have left, yet a few dogged drunks still want to keep it going. And that is the feeling you get with issue 14. A few fireworks remain, though with each muzzle flash there is a lack of surprise.
Among the gun toting children, as they toast their symbolic victory at blasting a helicopter from the sky, the bleak snow all around the protagonists is fitting canvas to splash the blood. While some of the character line work has been a little hit and miss, which is again an issue in this book, there are some nice panels here to offset this. In particular, the last few pages have some very nice work, the combination of solid colour work allied to good pencils, give a nice send off to the issue.
