We Can Never Go Home #1

by Matthew Rosenberg, Patrick Kindlon, Josh Hood & Amanda Scurti

Life is never easy when you’re a teenager (actually it is, you just don’t know it at the time). So when you take the drama of being in high school and add superpowers to it, things tend to get out of hand. Duncan is a loner at school, outcast from all the social groups. Madison is a popular girl dating a football player. These two opposites are brought together after an ugly incident that may have involved super powers and their homes may no longer be a safe place to stay.

There was something refreshing about reading the first issue of We Can Never Go Home. Even if the “super powers in the real world” concept has been used before, it’s pulled off really well here. Matthew Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon deliver a solid debut that brings readers right into the story before you even realize it. The dialog was key to making this a successful issue. Sometimes when writing dialog for teens, writers can really kill a book with horrible forced dialog. This is not the case for We Can Never Go Home. The conversations are fluid and at no point do you feel it getting dumbed-down or snarky. By the end of this issue you feel like you know these characters and are invested in the story.

Visually, We Can Never Go Home looks stunning. Josh Wood’s work in this issue looked elegantly crisp. His use of the numerous small panels on the page where Duncan asks Madison a series of questions was perfectly utilized. He is able to put so much detail on every page, yet, still manages to give We Can Never Go Home an almost simple style. This is also thanks to some eye-catching colors by Amanda Scurti. With this book having an ominous tone to its story it would have been easy to go with a dark or neutral palette. But Scurti is able to use some pretty vibrant colors to great effect in We Can Never Go Home. Her work is bright enough to demand your attention, but not take away from the story. This art team delivered an incredible looking first issue.

We Can Never Go Home was a wonderful first issue that made for a effortless read. It’s fun to discover a new book by creators you may not know and be pleasantly surprised. That’s one of the best joys of reading comics. This creative team really put a lot of effort into this book and it shows in this issue. The only complaint to find is that we have to wait for issue two.