Stephen King’s The Stand Book 2: American Nightmares
Stephen King’s The Stand Book 2: American Nightmares, Adapted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Mike Perkins, Marvel.
A VIRAL strain going under the hippy-trippy friendly handle of Captain Trips has wiped out most of humanity, or at least communication with it because this adaptation of Stephen King’s bestseller focuses completely upon those survivors in the USA, thus the subtitle for this second collection.
With the first collection a lot of pages were taken for us to get the back stories of those survivors, this time we get round two, but as those folk meet up along the highways and byways of middle America their interactions become intriguing and in some cases compelling. Harold Lauder wants his mother back alive, Lord only knows what she’d think were she to know of his feelings for the already pregnant Frannie Goldsmith, and then when they meet up with Larry Underwood, you just know things are going to get complicated. A multifaceted character our Harold, not likeable, but you may end up worrying about him at times, or what he might do.
Less of a travelogue than the first collection, there are enough action scenes this time round to entice Marvel’s core fan base, (though again its King’s fans who’ll appreciate this transliteration to a different medium most) and a bonus behind the scenes feature where Wolverhampton-born artist Michael Perkins discusses how and why he used photos reference to add realism in certain scenes.
Sponsored by Target Media.
