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Terrorwar
Terrorwar Volume 1
Blue City was the last liveable place on Earth. Now it's crawling with Terrors -- monsters that physically transform into whatever their victims are most afraid of. And the only people that can stop the Terrors are an overworked, underpaid crew from the wrong part of town.
Eisner-winning writer Saladin Ahmed (MILES MORALES) and superstar horror artist Dave Acosta (ELVIRA) turn it up to 11 for this sci-fi horror about working people fighting fears made flesh!
Collects TERRORWAR #1-4
Eisner-winning writer Saladin Ahmed (MILES MORALES) and superstar horror artist Dave Acosta (ELVIRA) turn it up to 11 for this sci-fi horror about working people fighting fears made flesh!
Collects TERRORWAR #1-4
232 pages, Paperback
Published April 16, 2024
About the author
Saladin Ahmed
500 books1,775 followersSaladin Ahmed was born in Detroit and raised in a working-class, Arab American enclave in Dearborn, MI.
His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and have appeared in Year's Best Fantasy and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five foreign languages. He is represented by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON is his first novel.
Saladin lives near Detroit with his wife and twin children.
His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and have appeared in Year's Best Fantasy and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five foreign languages. He is represented by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON is his first novel.
Saladin lives near Detroit with his wife and twin children.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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April 10, 2024"To hear the motivids tell it, Terrorfighters are the great protectors of Blue City, noble in task and purpose. The reality is, we're just regular people whose brains are better at fighting back Terrors. Which is fine. I don't believe in heroes. What I believe in...is my team."
I've enjoyed some of Saladin Ahmed's Marvel comics (Black Bolt!) a lot more than others (Ms Marvel? Msfire more like, amirite). But even when it wasn't working for me, it always had a bit of character to it, so I wasn't expecting a creator-owned series from him to be this generic. An unspecified distance into a plausibly grim future, the last humans all live in one desperately unequal city, menaced by embodiments of our greatest fears, which only a few special people are able to fight, not that it gets them much respect, or pay... So, sort of Hunger Games meets Lockwood & Co, not that either of those were exactly original to start with. Our heroes are the best of these fighters, but also the most hard done by, because of course they are, and have precisely one-and-a-half character traits each, which is still one more than their enemies (though there is one morally ambivalent NPC who very nearly manages three). As the story opens the Terror attacks are getting worse, and they get an offer they can't refuse from the uncaring elite, and from there every grunted rote badassery and entirely expected twist unrolls as predictably as if this were a Netflix action movie, which it quite possibly will be soon enough, though presumably that will also look like crap, whereas at least here Acosta, Leisten and Pereyra's art reaches the dizzy heights of Chaykin minus the sense of fun, crossed with diet Ottley.
(Edelweiss ARC)
I've enjoyed some of Saladin Ahmed's Marvel comics (Black Bolt!) a lot more than others (Ms Marvel? Msfire more like, amirite). But even when it wasn't working for me, it always had a bit of character to it, so I wasn't expecting a creator-owned series from him to be this generic. An unspecified distance into a plausibly grim future, the last humans all live in one desperately unequal city, menaced by embodiments of our greatest fears, which only a few special people are able to fight, not that it gets them much respect, or pay... So, sort of Hunger Games meets Lockwood & Co, not that either of those were exactly original to start with. Our heroes are the best of these fighters, but also the most hard done by, because of course they are, and have precisely one-and-a-half character traits each, which is still one more than their enemies (though there is one morally ambivalent NPC who very nearly manages three). As the story opens the Terror attacks are getting worse, and they get an offer they can't refuse from the uncaring elite, and from there every grunted rote badassery and entirely expected twist unrolls as predictably as if this were a Netflix action movie, which it quite possibly will be soon enough, though presumably that will also look like crap, whereas at least here Acosta, Leisten and Pereyra's art reaches the dizzy heights of Chaykin minus the sense of fun, crossed with diet Ottley.
(Edelweiss ARC)
April 17, 2023
Terror War 1 is available on April 19 from Image comics. Written by Saladin Amhed with art by Dave Acosta, the debut issue introduces us to Blue City, a futuristic metropolis with plenty of poverty, congestion and quasi-fascist motivational vid streams playing everywhere. But the biggest problem in Blue City are the terrors, manifestations of people’s nightmares come to life. Remember the scene in Ghostbusters when Ray thinks of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and it comes to life as a 20-story high lumbering death dealer? That’s what the terrors are, and if you’re in their way they’ll kill you. The only people who can kill them are Terrorfighters, who have the ability to shoot brain bullets. But they don’t fight the terrors for free, they get paid on a contract basis, with various teams of Terrorfighters vying for kills, making Blue City a pretty terrible place to live all around. Terror War is a fun, unique story with plenty of action and great horror art (which is also purposefully funny at times). I very much enjoyed it. It’s appropriate for teens and up.
June 13, 2024
Terrorwar feels basic with flat characters. Acosta’s artwork is great.
April 26, 2024
4/25/2024 Solid sci-fi/horror, but even more excellent representation. Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.
4/26/2024 w inks by Jay Leisten, colors by Walter Pereyra and letters by Shawn Lee.
I have been quite fond of Saladin Ahmed's output ever since the publication of Throne Of The Crescent Moon, but let's be honest: unless a book has been given to me to cover for work nowadays, I have not had the time to read it. So I was super glad when Terrorwar Volume 1, his creator-owned comic book with Dave Acosta, landed on my desk.
In a dystopian future where many of the world's resources have been exhausted, all of humanity is gathered in Blue City, the one haven left standing on planet Earth. But even this last sprawling bastion is haunted by strange beings known only as Terrors. No one really knows what they are, only that they manifest as people's greatest fears. If they get their hands on you, you can expect a fiery death.
Very little seems to put down the Terrors, except for the Brain Bullets that certain special individuals are capable of manifesting to destroy them. Muhammad Cho is one of these terrorfighters. He's put together a team of similar individuals who all run together as a crew. Unfortunately, since they're based in one of the less nice neighborhoods of Blue City, this means that they're still desperately underfunded, and need to compete with other crews in chasing bounties so that they actually get paid for putting down the Terrors that haunt their impoverished zones. It's all very Ghostbusters, until shock troops from the richer parts of Blue City step in to detain our plucky heroes for "unsanctioned terror engagement."
Obviously, that's a nonsense charge that's being used to bring Muhammad's crew in to meet the higher ups. Apparently, the Terrors are growing stronger, and his crew might be the only ones capable of putting them down for good. The more the team learns about the Terrors tho, the more they begin to question everything they believed about Blue City and who the bad guys really are.
This is a very solid sci-fi horror story that has clear, if not always exact, parallels to the evils of colonialization. I wasn't ever too surprised by any of the twists, but I've read so many books in my lifetime that I rarely am. What I was, however, was highly entertained throughout, as the creative team brought me on a cinematic journey that had me completely absorbed in the diverse team and their epic adventures from start to finish.
And that, tbh, is the main strength of this book, the utter and excellent commitment to diversity. It's so fogging refreshing to have Islam assumed as the default religion in this graphic novel, but to not have the religion itself be a focal point. The way that Muslim sayings and customs are just casually laced into the text, in the same way that Christianity forms the basis of otherwise irreligious entertainments in much of the First World, felt so fresh and personally freeing. It was also really great to have more than just one non-binary character, in addition to the sex positivity and LGBTQ rep throughout.
The art is generally above average, with the occasional homage to the end of the 20th century. I mean, who can look at Doctora's amazing hair and not think of John Byrne's Polaris? (Shut up, young people.) The commitment to diversity extends here, too, with different heroic body shapes further reinforcing the characters' individuality.
I really enjoyed this graphic novel, and while I know it's only a Volume 1, feel that it stands really well on its own. I only hope I get the chance to read more of Mr Ahmed's work soon.
Terrorwar Volume 1 by Saladin Ahmed & Dave Acosta was published April 16 2024 by Image Comics and is available from all good booksellers, including Bookshop!
4/26/2024 w inks by Jay Leisten, colors by Walter Pereyra and letters by Shawn Lee.
I have been quite fond of Saladin Ahmed's output ever since the publication of Throne Of The Crescent Moon, but let's be honest: unless a book has been given to me to cover for work nowadays, I have not had the time to read it. So I was super glad when Terrorwar Volume 1, his creator-owned comic book with Dave Acosta, landed on my desk.
In a dystopian future where many of the world's resources have been exhausted, all of humanity is gathered in Blue City, the one haven left standing on planet Earth. But even this last sprawling bastion is haunted by strange beings known only as Terrors. No one really knows what they are, only that they manifest as people's greatest fears. If they get their hands on you, you can expect a fiery death.
Very little seems to put down the Terrors, except for the Brain Bullets that certain special individuals are capable of manifesting to destroy them. Muhammad Cho is one of these terrorfighters. He's put together a team of similar individuals who all run together as a crew. Unfortunately, since they're based in one of the less nice neighborhoods of Blue City, this means that they're still desperately underfunded, and need to compete with other crews in chasing bounties so that they actually get paid for putting down the Terrors that haunt their impoverished zones. It's all very Ghostbusters, until shock troops from the richer parts of Blue City step in to detain our plucky heroes for "unsanctioned terror engagement."
Obviously, that's a nonsense charge that's being used to bring Muhammad's crew in to meet the higher ups. Apparently, the Terrors are growing stronger, and his crew might be the only ones capable of putting them down for good. The more the team learns about the Terrors tho, the more they begin to question everything they believed about Blue City and who the bad guys really are.
This is a very solid sci-fi horror story that has clear, if not always exact, parallels to the evils of colonialization. I wasn't ever too surprised by any of the twists, but I've read so many books in my lifetime that I rarely am. What I was, however, was highly entertained throughout, as the creative team brought me on a cinematic journey that had me completely absorbed in the diverse team and their epic adventures from start to finish.
And that, tbh, is the main strength of this book, the utter and excellent commitment to diversity. It's so fogging refreshing to have Islam assumed as the default religion in this graphic novel, but to not have the religion itself be a focal point. The way that Muslim sayings and customs are just casually laced into the text, in the same way that Christianity forms the basis of otherwise irreligious entertainments in much of the First World, felt so fresh and personally freeing. It was also really great to have more than just one non-binary character, in addition to the sex positivity and LGBTQ rep throughout.
The art is generally above average, with the occasional homage to the end of the 20th century. I mean, who can look at Doctora's amazing hair and not think of John Byrne's Polaris? (Shut up, young people.) The commitment to diversity extends here, too, with different heroic body shapes further reinforcing the characters' individuality.
I really enjoyed this graphic novel, and while I know it's only a Volume 1, feel that it stands really well on its own. I only hope I get the chance to read more of Mr Ahmed's work soon.
Terrorwar Volume 1 by Saladin Ahmed & Dave Acosta was published April 16 2024 by Image Comics and is available from all good booksellers, including Bookshop!
May 3, 2024
[Review of comics #1-9, which I guess is two collected books. I assumed all 9 would be one book until I checked just now.]
A really, really dumb story about one-dimensional characters whose job is to blow up ghost creatures in a dystopian future. It seems heavily inspired by 80s and 90s comics, where the muscle-bound superheroes would shout about their feelings before punching the problem away. I never was a fan of that style, but I suspect that even people who are will find these unrealistic characters annoying.
The plot is all about the lies that the ruling class uses to keep the rest of society in its place, and there's some potential there. If I ever believed that the characters would say the things they do or that scenes could play out the way they were shown, this could have been ok.
A really, really dumb story about one-dimensional characters whose job is to blow up ghost creatures in a dystopian future. It seems heavily inspired by 80s and 90s comics, where the muscle-bound superheroes would shout about their feelings before punching the problem away. I never was a fan of that style, but I suspect that even people who are will find these unrealistic characters annoying.
The plot is all about the lies that the ruling class uses to keep the rest of society in its place, and there's some potential there. If I ever believed that the characters would say the things they do or that scenes could play out the way they were shown, this could have been ok.
August 19, 2026
Let’s look at the positives first. There’s good art in this. A lot of the stuff with the Terrors in their true form is nice to look at. The book is casually queer and multicultural in a way I enjoy.
That’s about all I got. The story seems to smash together a bunch of familiar sci-fi tropes without doing much to make anything feel fresh. The characters are all very one-note and boring. Most of the time, the Terrors showing up as someone’s worst fear happens in a way that is very boring. Just one big monster after another, never truly delivering on what sounds like a somewhat cerebral concept.
Certainly not Ahmed’s usual quality of work.
That’s about all I got. The story seems to smash together a bunch of familiar sci-fi tropes without doing much to make anything feel fresh. The characters are all very one-note and boring. Most of the time, the Terrors showing up as someone’s worst fear happens in a way that is very boring. Just one big monster after another, never truly delivering on what sounds like a somewhat cerebral concept.
Certainly not Ahmed’s usual quality of work.
August 28, 2026
The art is fantastic, the story is very basic, I guess is designed for teens.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews