Review of "The Goddamned: Before the Flood, Issue One," by Jason Aaron et. al.

 Review of

The Goddamned: Before the Flood, Issue One, by Jason Aaron et. al.

Five out of five stars

Dark rendition of Genesis tales

 In this story about early human life on Earth, everything is dark and disturbing. While the Earth has a significant human population, there is nothing that could be considered civilization. It opens in a location on the edge of the desert 1600 years after Eden. A man has been robbed by a group called the Bone Boys, they cut his throat and threw him in a cesspool. To the astonishment of a one-armed ragamuffin boy, the man rises out of the pool and appears to be perfectly healthy.

 All the man wants to know is where he can find the Bone Boys, for his goal is revenge. Naked, he walks through some of the most forbidding of all human settlements. Ramshackle is a word far to good to describe the housing units and the Bone Boys are having a party where they have roasted an animal over an open fire. After a battle where the seemingly indestructible man defeats the entire Bone Boys group, he calmly recovers his stolen possessions and walks away eating a hunk of their cooked meat. The one-armed boy wants to go with him, but the man tells him no.

 After some wanderings where he reminisces over his life, the reader learns that he is Cain, son of Adam and the man that invented the act of murder. Not long after Cain leaves the camp of the Bone Boys, a caravan arrives, and the members appear to be just as brutal as the Bone Boys. They are slavers and their leader is a man called Noah. It is before the great flood and there are massive flesh eating animals that resemble dinosaurs.

 This is a very dark tale, not pleasant to read, yet there is a strong compulsion to acquire and read the subsequent installments. However, there is little belief that there will be any improvement in the state of the world.