by Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief
Official Description:
Cleo’s confession elicits more fear than anger from the group, and everyone sticks together into the great unknown. Sentient mushrooms for everyone! Eisner-winning writer KELLY THOMPSON (BLACK CLOAK) and superstar artist MATTIA DE IULIS (Captain America) team up for their first creator-owned work together!
*SPOILERS*
So there you are, at the end of The Cull issue one. It’s been weird and beautiful and you still don’t know how the hell Kelly Thompson, Mattia de Iulis, and the rest of this talented creative team are going to have enough pages to tell this obviously huge story. You ended up in a cave in a big rock outcropping just offshore, staring out the other end of the cave where instead of the expected ocean view, we are shocked at the reveal that there’s a whole ’nother universe outside the other end. Are we going to move on and read issues two through five?
Look, we all read Kelly Thompson’s Eisner-winning Hawkeye series. We read West Coast Avengers (2018) and we were sad when it was cancelled. We read her Captain Marvel and her Deadpool issues. We were thrilled by her amazing Black Widow (2020) and so we’re pretty confident that the story is going to hold up here, but only 5 issues? This seems… ambitious.
Likewise, we’ve fallen in love with Mattia de Iulis’ art. He’s popped up in a bunch of books we’ve read, but his storytelling abilities probably shone brightest in Jane Foster Valkyrie and The Mighty Valkyries. I still love those comics and want more of them. Whenever you get around to it, but seriously, do more please.
So where were we? *SPOILERS*
Our heroes all decide to brave walking to shore through the water-analog in the pink-skied other dimensional realm or maybe it’s a “Liminal Space” as Wade postulates. Even after you read The Cull #2, you might be wondering what is meant by this, so let me send you down three rabbit holes at Wikipedia, Wikipedia again, and Forbes.
For those of you who made it back from Wikiland, welcome back. I hope your adventure was enjoyable.
The adventure of our protagonists in The Cull is of course just beginning. When our protagonists first wade in, they see sea life that may be analogous to fish or sea cucumbers or kelp, but it quickly seems like it’s grown a face and legs a couple of moments later as it swims off. By the time they get to shore, they meet what looks like a blue red panda with gills (fish? amphibian? fungus?) standing at the tree line. Wade gives this creature what seems to be a bangle bracelet and the creature takes off and our group follows it into the forest. They only have 5 issues and yet the group decides to split up so they can each pee and/or make out and/or fool around. A few minutes into another dimension and they’re falling into cheap horror movie tropes? Are you kidding me? Ugh. I thought hard about it and came to a conclusion about the reason behind this. Thompson is too smart a writer to cheap out on stupid tropes like this without a good reason, so I’m thinking that Lux is going to have an accelerated pregnancy and birth a baby monster. Or a god. We’ll see.
The rest of The Cull #2 is a complete surprise. Okay, not to us the readers, because the final reveal was very much telegraphed.
So are we going to move on? “Okay, fine. We’re in.” The Cull is staying on top of my to-read list because the art is just so damn great and not all of the characters are idiots. They’ve got three more issues to make up for the eye rolling elicited by the middle of this sophomore installment.
Rating: 
ComicsOnline gives The Cull #2 4/5 second chances to explain god.
—
Please take a moment to FOLLOW & SUBSCRIBE to our updated ComicsOnline social channels.
We appreciate your support!
INSTAGRAM – COMICSONLINE
BSKY – COMICSONLINE
YOUTUBE – COMICSONLINE
FACEBOOK – COMICSONLINE
TWITTER / X – COMICSONLINE
Keep wikiing terms and bribing pandas with ComicsOnline.com for more comics, more reviews, and everything geek pop culture!
