First Impressions: Road Rage #1

Title: Road Rage #1

Writer: Stephen King, Joe Hill
Illustrator: Nelson Daniel
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Pages: 24

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

One of my favorite comic series is Locke & Key written by Joe Hill. He showed me that when it comes to character writing and depicting horror to a sequential art format that he is among the best in the business. Being the son of renowned author Stephen Kings, (Also no stranger to the comic scene) I wouldn’t expect any less. Now if you put these two minds together on a project you’ll have my attention, but if you have them working on a story paying homage to one of the most iconic thriller films of all time, then the fan boy in me comes out at maximum overdrive. No pun intended. Road Rage is a mini series paying tribute to the classic film Duel, which was Stephen Spielberg’s debut project as a director. It will also adapt to another novella called, “Throttle” which I must admit I never heard of but after reading this, am already hunting it down.

            The story focuses on a band of outlaw bikers who call themselves the Tribe. No fair weather riders or, “Wild Hogs” shenanigans here as these guys are the real deal. They’re rough, violent, and have no qualms killing if you piss them off. We meet them riding through the desert, heading to a place called Show Low to seek retribution for a business deal that went sour, putting them 60k in the negative. Throughout the book we see two of the main characters, Vince and Race are constantly bumping heads as to what the appropriate actions are to take on their current situation with no peaceful agreement looking to show.

            Taking a break at a rest stop the gang prepares to head out again when Vince notices an old vintage tanker truck just looming over them in the lot, but thinks nothing of it after it departs and has everyone get back on the road. Miles rack up and before the gang suspects anything suspicious, the mega rig suddenly attacks them by ruthlessly running over members and grinding both flesh and chrome into the asphalt. It is a high speed fight for survival as one by one the casualties add up and without knowing who the driver is or their reasoning for the carnage unfolding, the men have no clear idea on how to deal with their assailant other then to keep moving.

            The artwork in “Road Rage” is amazing as illustrator Nelson Daniel puts just the right amount of details in the right places. The bike designs are all unique and the character designs all have characteristics that make them stand out from each other. Given the fact that we are dealing with an all male cast wearing their insignia colors riding cruiser style bikes, that couldn’t have been an easy feat. The truck design and scale of it at times really brings out the monster in an otherwise normal mundane machine that we see every day. Just take a look at that mechanical beast towering over the three main characters and you’ll see what I mean. The Exaggerated size is perfect way of depicting the terror you got from watching Duel.

            One of my gripes with the art, (although this could be a story fault) is right from the start we are introduced to nine characters which like that truck on the cover can be intimadating to readers at first. Luckily though by the end of this book that number is cut in half as members become chunks of meat on the roads or stains on the truck's grill, leaving us with a more manageable cast. The other complaint is how the truck is drawn jumping through the air. While some pull off the terror element well, some just look odd as if it’s bucking like a bull. I’m sure was the intention but to me, seeing a truck bend like that, depicts it as crashing not chasing. 

            The dialog and overall story is easy to follow apart from the broken English but given that’s how your average biker talks I wouldn’t have it any other way. The narrator’s dialog always confused me on one aspect because throughout this book, we never learn who he/she is telling the story. It reminded me of the older silver age format of story telling which you don’t see too much today. The revenge plot was a solid enough ground to begin on but since everyone is running for their lives by the end of this first issue, we’ll have to wait and see if it remains the main plot device.

            Overall “Road Rage” was a very satisfying first issue of this mini series. It got a lot of story done in this book and has a cliff hanger that leaves me chomping at the bit for more. It’s clear that this father and son collaboration have a lot of passion for this project and I must say it imitates the atmosphere of Duel well. I can’t wait to read the next issue.

Ryan Pierce