Leaving Megalopolis: Surviving Megalopolis
Beginning where Book One ended, our Megalopolis residents have a mission on their hands
Leaving Megalopolis might have been a high-concept mash-up of every postMarvelman super book, spliced with The Walking Dead and Escape From New York, but boy it was a page-turning blast.
The fact that Gail Simone had to crowdfund to get this sequel off the ground is all the more remarkable, given the stellar results. Surviving Megalopolis follows immediately on from the last scene in Book One, which saw our motley crew of Megalopolis residents escape the City’s “afflicted” superheroes.
Simone and Calafiore thrust you straight back into the action. With female lead Mina (a nod to Alan Moore’s League member, perhaps?) missing and presumed dead, the remaining escapees join a small team of specialists who have been handpicked to rescue their benefactor’s husband from the City – the idea being that they will also retrieve Mina at the same time. It’s an unrelenting ride with plenty of surprises to augment the action. The exposition, Congressional hearings and childhood flashbacks never slow the pace, and chances are you’ll charge through the series with the speed of Simone’s Flash-analogue, Fleet. Speaking of whom, Fleet is a fabulously realised speedster: superskinny because he’s moving too fast to stop and eat, with a skeletal grin revealed by his broken helmet. In fact, all of Simone’s ‘analogue-lite’, supers are great fun, and they’re all bastards. Except for one… You might have thought that there was nothing new left to add to the dog-eared superhero genre, but Simone has found a great angle, even if it does involve borrowing heavily from what has gone before. The fact that Surviving Megalopolis manages to better its predecessor is an even bigger achievement.