Comic Book Review: Last of the Irin – Volume One

Last of the Irin is a web-comic trilogy from writer Robert McMillan with volume one available to read now.

The trilogy charts the feud between the Canaanite Gods, brothers Yahweh and Baal, miners of gold, the slave masters of our ancestors, known today as God and the Devil. The interstellar family feud has reverberated through human history, and its path leads, as it narrows, to a young Armenian immigrant girl growing up in Sweden today. As the feud is rekindled, Anahita steps into the shoes of her illustrious forefathers. Soon our history, our very existence, now pivots around her ability to manoeuvre through this deadly game of love, revenge, and wealth. Anahita’s adventure is our personal journey of self-discovery, and that of our entire species.

As you can no doubt surmise from the official synopsis, Last of the Irin is an incredibly detailed piece of work with volume one setting up a lot the story beats and characters. Told in great detail and not over-doing it on the word count, what begins incredibly confusingly, slowly begins to take shape and make sense.

By time volume one comes to a close, most will be invested and eagerly awaiting the following two volumes.

A lot of this lies at the feet of the character Anahita, who is introduced in a painful way and pushed into the light. Her story is what grounds things in a bit more reality at first, taking us away from an assault of locations, time-periods and events that barely seem to connect.

From ancient times with ancient gods to futuristic sci-fi worlds and our very own planet Earth, Last of the Irin is incredibly fantastical. Made even more so by art that really jumps off the page. Characters are solid and real; technology is detailed and the backgrounds are faded around what you should be looking at so you’re never distracted. The devil is in the detail and Satan is here in all his glory.

The negatives? While it mostly relies on the art to tell the story with spaced out text bubbles here and there, there are a few pages that get wordy. Confusingly wordy, as suddenly a lot of detail is spun out and you might find your eyes glossing over somewhat. It doesn’t help that it feels like we’ve been dropped in such an already alive world, characters and events are mentioned that we know little of. At least for the first portion of the volume. Happily, this does improve as it goes on and a better grasp is had, of just what is going on.

It’s not easiest of things to read but it pays off your patience and is worthy of your time. Chances are you’ll be hooked by time you reach the end and with a more detailed story breakdown and codex on the website, there is plenty to tide you over until volume two arrives.