Stitched, Volume 2

Stitched (collected editions) #2

by Mike Wolfer, Fernando Heinz Furukawa (Artist)

An ancient supernatural evil is reborn in the hands of modern terrorists! Think The Walking Dead meets Black Hawk Down!

Expanding the world of Garth Ennis' innovative short film, Stitched, horror mainstay Mike Wolfer tells the next chapter in a gripping world of terror. The curse of the Stitched leaves the buried desert where it was spawned and is violently injected into the modern world. When a smuggler delivers the secret of the Stitched to a wealthy collector, the unsuspecting world learns that true horror doesn't stay buried in the sands of time; it transcends them. A team of Navy Seals must attempt to secure the threat and find a way to destroy the Stitched and their secrets before they are loosed among an unsuspecting population. But the true horror of the Stitched isn't only felt at their crushing granite fingertips, but in the terrifying turning process where the unwary become legions of the dead and unwilling tools of the controlling terrorist's whims. The trade collects issues #8-13 of the ongoing horror series, Stitched.

Genres: Comics, Horror, Comic Book, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2013

Reviews

[Zedsdead · Rating 3 out of 5]

An upjumped henchman from v1 smuggles six Stitched to a wealthy collector along with the barrel of black tar from which the Stitched are created. But the collector knows more than he's letting on.

The illustration quality takes a significant step down from the first volume. It's cartoonish. Backgrounds disappear as if the illustration were done on a shoestring budget. The violence...and I can't believe I'm saying this...is laughably gratuitous. Multiple panels expended on the exact way this arm gets severed or that skull collapses. The fact of the violence is important to Stitched , but the way it's drawn in v2 is silly.

While the departure of Garth Ennis is detrimental, the story--relating the origin of the black tar--saves v2 from ignominy.

Plot points:
--Non-story-critical violence to remind us what the Stitched are capable of.
--Negotiations between the current caretaker of the Stitched and the collector at the latter's remote mansion.
--Something starts picking off the underlings of both parties.
--The collector recounts the origins of the Stitched: When the India-occupying British invaded Afghanistan in the 19th century, a mountain cult parlayed with a demon to drive them out. The demon was given a slave to rape. The British tried to rescue her, then to kill her, then buried the possessed woman alive. She/it went insane, gradually liquifying into the black tar. The cult recovered, protected, and utilized the tar. The pebble-cans that animate the Stitched echo the tinking of the pebbles that dropped on its coffin.
--At the collector's mansion, the tar--which is sentient--commandeers the Stitched and turns them on both the collector and the smuggler. The smuggler's clever, duplicitous wife is filled with the tar and sealed in the barrel.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ive been very pleased with this horror series. In this one the series moves into an entirely new location with a new twist on the story. A collector in Sri Lanka looks to acquire the stitched and finds a smuggler willing to help. The origin of the stitched in revealed in this volume and as expected it's pretty dark and gruesome.

Without giving too much away, we also get to see a battle of stitched vs. stitched here. The art's not quite as good as first volume but not bad. I really like the way the story progresses and it doesn't seem like each volume is rehashed. Great comic for horror lovers.

[Alex Sarll]

Wolfer wrote the first volume from a Garth Ennis outline, but here is the sole credited writer, and the difference really shows. Yes, we still have some military men, but for all that I know US SEALs aren't a patch on the first volume's SAS, the incompetence they demonstrate in one scene here is ridiculous for any veteran. And then it's on to a remote villa in which a rich, eccentric collector is bidding for some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know which have been unearthed by a venal gangster, and there's a storm, and something rustling in the shrubbery, and come on, really? Is that it? This level of horror cliche? The first volume was properly creepy precisely because the mountains of Afghanistan aren't a standard horror location, and the Stitched themselves were such an eye-catching (heh!) new addition to the genre's monster-bank. Plus, this time out we get more detail about them, and as ever, even the most gruesome backstory proves a good way to make a weird threat less unsettling. It doesn't help that artist Fernando Heinz Furukawa, though he has a fascinatingly cosmopolitan name, delivers several scenes here suggesting he needs a lot more practice - people coming off machetes implausibly easy, sudden manga faces in amongst the realism, et cetera.

[47Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork doesn't excel here, but it's adequate especially for the bloody battles. If you enjoy graphic displays of killing and maiming, then this book is for you. The story ends with a cliffhanger into the next volume.

Phillip Strathmore is a wealthy collector of unique items and he wants to buy Sidi Salid's six stitched. Salid also has an oil drum for sale, an item of great value for the controllers of the stitched and of immense magical power.

One of Salid's men opens the drum at which point the power goes out in Strathmore's mansion. An unknown party is responsible and both Strathmore's and Salid's people are on high alert. Salid is manipulated by the power of the drum into ordering his men to take over the mansion. Strathmore's people are losing ground, so he is forced to use the stitched he has been hiding in a restricted wing of his mansion. The battles between the two groups of stiched is impressive to say the least.

In the end both Salid and Strathmore are killed by their own stitched. The power in the drum only intended to leave Salid's wife alive to undergo the transformation given by the magical black fluid used to create the stitched.

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Si bien el cómic original no era innovador ni totalmente fascinante, sí que funcionaba como sanguinolento pasatiempo. Pero si se buscó una continuación, me esperaba que sería porque de verdad habría algo más que contar y aportar. Pero este segundo tomo de Stitched apenas logra cambiar la ambientación (tampoco con brusquedad, podríamos pensar que ahora los Cosidos podrían desembarcar en una ciudad... pero lo hacen en una casa aislada de un ricachón... ) y dar un vistazo de una perezosa mitología para estas criaturas. Desde luego se nota el apeo de Ennis en el guión, que aunque precisamente en la anterior historia tampoco era un alarde de inventiva, sí que lograba mantener un mínimo de intención. Mike Wolfer desaprovecha la posible y potente denuncia social con el personaje del traficante. Si solo estás aquí por el gore, pues al menos saldrás algo contento. Aunque el estilo de dibujo de Fernando Heinz Furukawa es bastante "manga", se le de muy bien dibujar desmembramientos y cuerpos eviscerados.

Este segundo tomo viene a evidenciar que no solo hace falta esmerarse en diseñar una criatura potente en la apariencia, si la historia de fondo detrás de ella es terriblemente perezosa y anodina.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dare I say it, but I enjoyed this as much if not more than Volume 1. While Furukawa's artwork isn't as polished as Mike Wolfer's was in Volume 1 (issues 1-7), I found the story to be maybe a bit more cohesive than the Wolfer/Ennis collaboration on Volume 1. Maybe I am just more comfortable with the premise this time around, or maybe the change of locales was a breath of fresh air. Either way, this was like an ancient black magic cursed Jurassic Park.

A wealthy collector offers to buy the half dozen remaining “stitches”, as they are called. As he is discussing terms with the seller, he informs the seller that he is well aware of what they are and how they became what they are. We get the full scoop on them in this arc, as well as a helluva surprise toward the end.

As is the case with all Avatar Press titles, this is over the top in terms of gore and violence, but what do you expect? All ages reading this is not, and I am happy for that. While I believe that superhero comics which have toys marketed to children should be accessible to all ages, I have no such compunctions about Stitched. It's not like my son is begging me to buy him a Stitched lunch box at Target.

[Chen-Wei Cheong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stayed up till 3am to finish reading this volume, all I can say is WOW!
This volume reveals the history and myth of how the Stitched are created, and the blackest of magics used for the ritual.
I really was not expecting the collector to have a personal collection, because he was acting all coy, and pretending like he knew the history, which he did, and tried to get his seller to reveal even more, and at the same time fill in the gaps of the mythology - it was genius, the way the story peeled away like layers of an onion.
Highly recommended for supernatural fantasy/horror genre fans!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel jumps to a new setting rather than following the trail left in volume one, and what you get is a standard heist read rather than something better.

[Cameron · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb pretty much says it all. It expands on the lore of the Stitched. Storywise it is 2 rather nasty, humourless slasher sequences featuring disposable villains and no character development.

The art was still good and suited to the style of story but it really missed Garth Ennis's writing and humour.

It is pretty how I feared it would be - I won't bother with further volumes.

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great followup and cinematic feel.