By Jarred A. Luján — Godkillers is a story about Philip Alhazred’s journey through a world of monsters that are being used as weapons of warfare. A horrifying premise, the book reads like a blend of an action comic with elements of supernatural horror.

The art in the book is spectacular. Maan House has a really incredible way of getting into the nitty gritty of battles, while capitalizing on big moments to make them stand out. I think he does a really great job in terms of leading the eye — the grenade-through-the-window moment early on being one that really stands out. Little clever things like that go a long way in terms of making a sequence pop. Additionally, I love Hernan Cabrera’s color work. Hernan adds this layer of grit that fits the tone of the story super well. It feels like a war movie, and that last page finally hits with that punch of supernatural to it. It’s a great team up on the art here, and it’s consistent throughout.

Unfortunately, I feel like roughly half of this book kind of stumbles over itself plot-wise. It feels like the pacing is way off. We’re rapidly introduced to characters before we ever really get to know our hero on any meaningful level. The plot just gets convoluted several times during the first half. We have a mess of time jumps/flashbacks, and it just feels like the book’s pacing keeps getting interrupted. There’s just a lot of breadcrumbs laid out that don’t ultimately lead to something more on the whole. One of my biggest complaints is the inclusion of the waterboarding scene. It’s unnecessary, and it feels like it was added to really push home the dark tone of the book, but it doesn’t do anything for us story wise. It’s particularly frustrating because there’s a ton of new characters by this point in the book who we really don’t know anything about. I mean, there is a guy wielding a sledgehammer in the book, I want to know that guy!

With that said, the last part of the book, the last seven pages to be exact, are tremendously promising. When I read the premise of Godkillers, these pages were what I was hoping for. They’re fun, they’re exciting, and they involve the actual premise of the book. We’re finally getting rolling into the supernatural, which is fresh and exciting. While all of this debut didn’t work for me, I’m hopeful that the back half of Godkillers #1 is more indicative of what we can expect in future issues.

Overall: This book has tremendous promise. Between an exciting premise, a solid back half, and a talented art team, I’m thinking we have something to look forward to in the issues to come. But this debut stumbles and catches itself a bit late in the game. 7.0/10

Godkillers #1
Writer: Mark Sable
Artist: Maan House
Colorist: Hernan Cabrera
Letterer: Thomas Mauer
Publisher: AfterShock Comics
Price: $4.99
Solicit: Abdul Alhazred is an Arab-American folklore professor-turned-soldier whose fear of death stems from uncertainty about the existence of an afterlife. Then he joins THE GODKILLERS, a special forces unit tasked with ?ghting insurgents who use mythological creatures as weapons of mass destruction. Now that he knows that the supernatural exists, he'll have to decide which is worse - death or the nightmarish monsters he thought were mere legends. From writer Mark Sable (Grounded, Fearless, Supergirl) and newcomer artist Maan House, THE GODKILLERS is a monster story for the modern age.

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Jarred A. Luján makes comics, studies existential philosophy, and listens to hip-hop too loudly. For bad jokes and dog pictures, you can follow him on Twitter.