What do you think?
Rate this book
The Kids
Every parent thinks their kids grow up too quickly…but not like this. In one bewildering, terrifying instant, every child below the age of one disappears—to be replaced by creatures beyond their mothers & fathers’ understanding. What happened to the kids? Who are these deranged, hyper-violent adults who’ve taken their places? One horrified couple do their best to solve the nightmarish puzzle—but before they can find the answers they seek, they must survive the night...From the Eisner Award-winning writer GARTH ENNIS (creator of The Boys and Preacher) and artist DALIBOR TALAJIC (Deadpool, Hit-Monkey, X-Men) comes this horrific, twisted tale of every parent's nightmare! From NINTH CIRCLE, bringing you the BEST horror each month by the industry's TOP creative talent
Kindle Edition
Published March 26, 2025
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Garth Ennis
2,624 books3,169 followersEnnis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 14, 2025
Read 08-13-2025
2.5 rounded upppp. I bet every person who bought this bought this bc of the Ennis nametag, like I did, & wound up pretty disappointed, like I was.
This was pretty absurd, if I’m being honest, & not in a good way. The premise was pretty dumb, but I guess when you think about it the idea that babies would suddenly grow up is not all that much more absurd than the idea that people would turn into zombies, & I’ve consumed plenty of zombie content, so I soldiered on, deciding to give it a chance. All I can say is…Garth really hates kids!
I checked too, he doesn’t have any, & after reading this now we know why. The premise here is that all the babies in the world, or maybe just in the town I’m not sure, suddenly grow up into adult bodies while maintaining their baby brains/minds. So they are essentially giant adult sized babies, or as the hard-as-nails Maga c*nt (a term the old lady neighbor character of the story uses to describe herself!) refers to them—“retards.” Yeah, nice lol. This is Garth Ennis folks, no room here for the faint of heart. This in itself might not seem that bad, but bc it’s Ennis, you know he’s going to take things to the extremes, & shits definitely gonna get grotesque. These adult babies aren’t just innocent adults, no, they are the borderline psychotic wanting machines with exposed genitalia (I guess all their clothes, I dunno, burst off when they grew 3.5x their former size? And yes, the average person goes on to be 3.5x their birth size. You learn something new everyday!) Because of their hunger, their need, & their size, these babies turn into dangerous man-babies (& women-babies) that kill as they try to feed, bc as adults they have such brute force that they’d tear their mothers to shreds with all that wanting & needing etc etc.
So yeah, basically babies = mindless wanting machines that just suck & eat & shit & cry & need & take. It’s clear here why Garthy boy has chosen not to procreate, & now we all know his true feelings on babies. If you’re a relative, or a friend, make sure not to ever hand Garth a baby.
The old lady character was sorta cool, even tho it’s through her pessimistic outlook that we really get the gist of things, she seems to arrive at these conclusions a little too quickly, but I guess we can assume that she’s had these opinions of babies the whole time and has just been waiting for the adult-baby apocalypse to let her opinions be known, and the family that we’re following too easily leaves their baby behind to find safety, I dunno about Garth’s mom and Dad, but no parents I know would run away from a house and leave their baby behind just bc a strange naked man is stomping around screaming & being grabby. But whatever, it serves the story, and as a one shot I get it, Garth didn’t have the time to go deep, so all in all I guess he still did a thing here. He pulled off a short, ridiculous story that somehow still had like, I guess a moral to the story? Albeit a sorta gross, icky one. But he got his point across that’s for sure, and he did so while also supplying any Garth Ennis enthusiast with the typical Garth Ennis grotesqueries, so as absurd as this was I’m still giving it 2.5 stars.
2.5 rounded upppp. I bet every person who bought this bought this bc of the Ennis nametag, like I did, & wound up pretty disappointed, like I was.
This was pretty absurd, if I’m being honest, & not in a good way. The premise was pretty dumb, but I guess when you think about it the idea that babies would suddenly grow up is not all that much more absurd than the idea that people would turn into zombies, & I’ve consumed plenty of zombie content, so I soldiered on, deciding to give it a chance. All I can say is…Garth really hates kids!
I checked too, he doesn’t have any, & after reading this now we know why. The premise here is that all the babies in the world, or maybe just in the town I’m not sure, suddenly grow up into adult bodies while maintaining their baby brains/minds. So they are essentially giant adult sized babies, or as the hard-as-nails Maga c*nt (a term the old lady neighbor character of the story uses to describe herself!) refers to them—“retards.” Yeah, nice lol. This is Garth Ennis folks, no room here for the faint of heart. This in itself might not seem that bad, but bc it’s Ennis, you know he’s going to take things to the extremes, & shits definitely gonna get grotesque. These adult babies aren’t just innocent adults, no, they are the borderline psychotic wanting machines with exposed genitalia (I guess all their clothes, I dunno, burst off when they grew 3.5x their former size? And yes, the average person goes on to be 3.5x their birth size. You learn something new everyday!) Because of their hunger, their need, & their size, these babies turn into dangerous man-babies (& women-babies) that kill as they try to feed, bc as adults they have such brute force that they’d tear their mothers to shreds with all that wanting & needing etc etc.
So yeah, basically babies = mindless wanting machines that just suck & eat & shit & cry & need & take. It’s clear here why Garthy boy has chosen not to procreate, & now we all know his true feelings on babies. If you’re a relative, or a friend, make sure not to ever hand Garth a baby.
The old lady character was sorta cool, even tho it’s through her pessimistic outlook that we really get the gist of things, she seems to arrive at these conclusions a little too quickly, but I guess we can assume that she’s had these opinions of babies the whole time and has just been waiting for the adult-baby apocalypse to let her opinions be known, and the family that we’re following too easily leaves their baby behind to find safety, I dunno about Garth’s mom and Dad, but no parents I know would run away from a house and leave their baby behind just bc a strange naked man is stomping around screaming & being grabby. But whatever, it serves the story, and as a one shot I get it, Garth didn’t have the time to go deep, so all in all I guess he still did a thing here. He pulled off a short, ridiculous story that somehow still had like, I guess a moral to the story? Albeit a sorta gross, icky one. But he got his point across that’s for sure, and he did so while also supplying any Garth Ennis enthusiast with the typical Garth Ennis grotesqueries, so as absurd as this was I’m still giving it 2.5 stars.
May 23, 2025
Ennis es un loco de mierda hermoso y hace en THE KIDS una versión anti mapapis del caos de CROSSED. Todos los nenes por debajo de un año se convierten en adultos necesitados caprichosos y asesinos. Y al principio parece una boludez, pero tiene muy buenos momentos y algunas bajadas de línea interesantes. 3 estrellitas y media.
May 20, 2025
This was kind of stupid to be honest. One night infants grow instantly into adults and start hurting people because they don't know their own strength, I guess. For some reason, this neighborhood seems to have 6 billion infants in it that have turned to adults too. I know of only one in our immediate part of the neighborhood. We probably wouldn't even know anything happened if this occurred in our neighborhood. The coloring made it really difficult to tell what was happening in places.
March 28, 2025
"The Walking Dead" meets "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid". The result is a rather bizarre and mediocre horror story that smells like milk, blood and used nappies. I'm sure that the pitched idea sounded very, very cool, but the actual execution... Oh boy.
STYLING: ⭐⭐⭐
ORIGINALITY: ⭐⭐
CHARACTER DEV.: ⭐⭐
PLOT DEV.: ⭐⭐
IMPORTANCE: ⭐
STYLING: ⭐⭐⭐
ORIGINALITY: ⭐⭐
CHARACTER DEV.: ⭐⭐
PLOT DEV.: ⭐⭐
IMPORTANCE: ⭐
August 11, 2025
Crazy premise, forgettable comic.
I really don't know what Garth Ennis was going for here.
It looks like the beginning of a series, but as a standalone story, it is just an excuse for his characteristic chaos and violence scenes.
No charisma in the characters, a vague criticism about issues nobody cares.
I really don't know what Garth Ennis was going for here.
It looks like the beginning of a series, but as a standalone story, it is just an excuse for his characteristic chaos and violence scenes.
No charisma in the characters, a vague criticism about issues nobody cares.
April 3, 2025
A true, fun and exciting one shot.
The way comic one shots are supposed to be.
The way comic one shots are supposed to be.
April 10, 2025
Un capítulo de, no se, Twilight Zone, pero escrito por Ennis. Si te gusta su estilo violento quizás sea para ti. A mi solo me gustó el arte.
April 13, 2025
What a concept!
Only lacks a 5th star due to the Stephen-King-short-storyesque lack of an explanation for the night of horror.
Only lacks a 5th star due to the Stephen-King-short-storyesque lack of an explanation for the night of horror.
April 29, 2025
A creepy idea stretched beyond its workable limit even at a short 40ish pages, and then to have the ostensibly single issue tale end on a cliffhanger? No thank you.
May 13, 2025
This was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read
August 4, 2025
Art 2
Story 1
Deluxe format for this ?
Story 1
Deluxe format for this ?
May 10, 2025
8/10
a very bizarre one-shot considering it has a mighty interesting cliffhanger in the last panel. i don't hate the cliffhanger and its left to your imagination what comes next but the cliffhanger also acts as a nice way of saying maybe we've concluded this single problem that makes up the whole comic but there will be more unexpected, unpredictable problems ahead. without revealing too much, it reinforces the the old lady's notion that nature is punishing society for raising kids poorly and it will keep punishing them until it decides it's done. this comic book gets a kind of shock value out of you early on and it does some fucked up shit. it's a great horror comic with some really cool ideas and commentary to go along with it. i actually do wish this would get at least a miniseries to further flesh out these ideas.
a very bizarre one-shot considering it has a mighty interesting cliffhanger in the last panel. i don't hate the cliffhanger and its left to your imagination what comes next but the cliffhanger also acts as a nice way of saying maybe we've concluded this single problem that makes up the whole comic but there will be more unexpected, unpredictable problems ahead. without revealing too much, it reinforces the the old lady's notion that nature is punishing society for raising kids poorly and it will keep punishing them until it decides it's done. this comic book gets a kind of shock value out of you early on and it does some fucked up shit. it's a great horror comic with some really cool ideas and commentary to go along with it. i actually do wish this would get at least a miniseries to further flesh out these ideas.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews