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Snowpiercer vol 3: Terminus h/c


Snowpiercer vol 3: Terminus h/c Snowpiercer vol 3: Terminus h/c

Snowpiercer vol 3: Terminus h/c back

Oliver Bocquet & Jean-Marc Rochette

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Page 45 Review by Jonathan

"Who are these people? How can they be alive?"
"No one can survive outside without an ice suit."
"Apparently they can! We have to let them in!"

Concluding part of Jean-Marc Rochette's examination of the perils of post-apocalyptic train travel, I believe, but then I mistakenly thought that after SNOWPIERCER VOL 2! I did think it was a bit of an oblique ending to volume 2, but now having read Oliver Bocquet's afterword about receiving the invitation from Jean-Marc Rochette to illustrate the next instalment because Bocquet felt there was still more story to be told, I suspect he was probably hedging his bets!

So, after decades of never-ending travel on the titular Snowpiercer, ploughing its way through the endless frozen wastelands of an Earth plunged into a new Ice Age, with nary even a tiny scrap of tundra to break up the monotony, the train has at long last come to rest. The mysterious signal playing music detected at the end of volume two has been shown to be a long-abandoned radio transmitter much to the despair of our ragtag nation of hobos. That is until one bright spark asks the question where the transmitter is still getting its power from... Cue one quick game of 'follow the cable, excavation and discovery of a buried skyscraper' later and we have ourselves a story!

What follows, whilst not having quite the intense, claustrophobic, condensed insanity of the first two volumes, simply due to the fact that our passengers have disembarked their confines, is just as disturbing in terms of social commentary when our hardy travellers find a whole underground city seemingly thriving. There are a few customs that seem a little odd, sure, but it's not like the inhabitants are going to turn out to be complete mentalists, right...?

Rochette does indeed have another worthy tale to tell! Bocquet's art, the third artist to take a turn after the late Lob and then Benjamin Legrand, once again provides a slightly different feel to proceedings. All three have their merits, but it is probably testament to the strength of the writing that any differences in art style are completely unimportant. The ending this time feels more definitive, though it's by no means conclusive so I suppose if Rochette does come up with yet another idea, there may well be more SNOWPIERCER. Given the mantra of those aboard is "Forward, forward, forward, the train only knows that word..." I wouldn't bet against it.
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