Assorted Crisis Events Issue #2 Review

Background – Well, that was unnecessarily violent.

Writing – The story is ALL over the place with this one, so if this section seems disjointed, that’s why. This incredibly depressing issue is based around a guy named Jesus, who we follow from childhood to adulthood. We start in a museum where he gets scared of a stuffed dinosaur and then quickly transition to his fathers funeral where he tells his mother not to be scared. I don’t speak Spanish all that well, but the way pages 2 & 3 are set up,  I feel like the dialogue is just being repeated from mother to son and vice-versa. I just wish it had been clearer. Maybe we could have had a translation bubble?

We then jump to when Jesus was a boy and he faints in church at the mere word of blood. Then it’s off to when Jesus is a young adult working in a slaughter-house of all places with his father. Between people saying blood and seeing it constantly, Jesus once again faceplants. He then faceplants a 3^rd time when his daughter is born. These scenes are intercut with images of his parents bringing him over to America (I’m assuming) and his mother slapping him for not helping his drunk father.

Back to the present (at least I think it’s the present), Jesus’s mother has died, and we find out that he’s having a daughter as he gets told he can’t work as a dishwasher without the proper documentation. This leads us to a memory which at least explains his fear of dinosaurs (and I guess crocodiles) when a person his family is migrating with is eaten by one. I guess that also explains the blood phobia.

After that delightful memory, we see his father’s death when he falls into a meat grinder at work. This guy cannot catch a break and neither can I. I haven’t read anything this depressing in a LONG LONG time. Then it gets even “better” as we see him struggle to kill a cow (which is crying). There is no reason for the issue to keep piling this stuff on. This is dark for darks sake. Not for storytelling.

Jesus is now on the killing floor of the slaughter house and GIANT LIZARDS come in to kill all the workers. This might be a hallucination, but at this point I don’t even know what’s real and what’s not.

I can’t continue this portion of the review. The storytelling is incoherent except for the reveal of why lizards and blood are such an issue for Jesus. This is shocking for shock’s sake, not because it helps the story. I don’t know what Deniz Camp was thinking when he wrote this issue. I can see the framework of what he wanted to do, but the execution was awful.

Artwork – As much as the actual subject matter is just vile, the art is fantastic. The use of reds as it slowly overtakes the canal (?) the family is traveling across is super and the way the slaughterhouse is depicted makes it seem more like a dream than anything else. The animals dying is over the top gory. Really, there was NO reason it had to be this disturbing.

Final Thoughts – On some level, I feel like this is my fault. I was just not aware that this is an anthology series. I came into this issue ready to see more adventures in the neighborhood that can’t figure out if it’s a movie set or not and instead found this. This is a depressing, horrifying, beautifully drawn issue that has completely turned me off to the idea of picking up issue 3. Issue 1 had humor. It was dark, but it was still funny (that falling into the painted crevice was hilarious.) None of this is funny. Whatever “humor” moments they had didn’t stick at all. I’m going to stick around until issue 5 because after reading the solicits it sounds like it has an interesting premise, but if issues 3 and 4 are anything like this, issue 5 will be my last one. Please Deniz, stick to science fiction and out there ideas. You are much better in those areas. I want to read exciting and fun comics, not a PETA advertisement combined with bad parenting.

Publisher:  Marvel

Writer:  Deniz Camp

Artist: Eric Zawadzki

Colorist: Jordie Belaire

Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Cover Artists: Eric Zawadzki, Artyom Trakhanov, Gabriel Walta

Genre:  Anthology

Format: Monthly

Release Date: 4/23/2025