Babyteeth: Year Two

Babyteeth #3-4

by Donny Cates (Writer), Garry Brown (Artist), Mike Marts (Editor)

Crazy Warlock dudes, super secret cabals, inter-dimensional portals, new assassins, and the horrors of airline travel with a (demonic hellspawn sent to destroy the universe) baby! Plus: Marty, your new favorite demon-racoon-thing friend!

Year Two hardcover features the final issues of the critically-acclaimed saga of Sadie Ritter, her adorable little hellspawn and the people who love them as we enter into the most terrifying chapters of our journey: THE TERRIBLE TWOS! Plus, who is our mysterious new storyteller?! And what secrets about the fate of Clark do they hold?! And what of the Red Realm? All leading up to the final showdown with you-know-who himself. Talk about daddy issues

From Donny Cates, the writer of Buzzkill, Paybacks, Redneck and the breakout hit God Country, comes the pulse-poundingly popular horror series with art from THE REVISIONIST's Garry Brown!

Collecting issues #11-20 of AfterShock's original tentpole title!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Comics, Horror

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2022

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Babyteeth fans have waited a long time for Year Two.
2018. That's a loooong time, Cates.
To be fair, in the interim things happened. And really all that matter is that in the end, we got our apocalypse, right?



I absolutely loved Year One, so maybe my expectations were too high for Year Two. The story was really good as far as some things went but it was missing something that would have made it great.



The explanation of the Antichrist stuff seemed to me to be a bit thrown together and the conclusion felt very rushed. The characters we loved that died also felt somewhat off. I guess part of that was because there were several fake-out deaths before the real deaths so I was kind of in limbo as to how to feel when the actual deaths occurred on page. Does that make sense?



The ending was just...it needed more time. The core of the conclusion was exactly what it needed to be in a way, but it was also just the absolute bare bones of an ending. Everything was stripped down to the essentials, and there weren't any fancy jazz hands to go along with the performance to spice things up.
Still, I'm happy that this one has finally been wrapped up in a satisfactory manner.

Recommended to anyone looking for an antichrist comic.

[Lukasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reviewing the whole series:

Parenting is hard. Parenting the Antichrist? That’s a whole new level of yikes. Welcome to Babyteeth, Donny Cates’ wild, emotional, and darkly funny comic series that somehow makes apocalyptic doom feel... weirdly relatable. Above all, it’s about family-just with more cults, portals to hell, and demons.

Sadie Ritter, a 16-year-old single mom, is sweet and totally unprepared for what’s coming. Her baby, Clark, starts doing some very un-baby things, like causing earthquakes or preferring blood to milk. There’s no denying it-her adorable newborn is destined to bring about the end of the world.

Happily, Sadie’s got some backup. Her badass, foul-mouthed sister, Heather, is someone you want on your apocalypse survival team. She’s all heart and heavy weaponry, and honestly, every time she’s on the page, you know something cool is about to happen. She’s fiercely protective of Sadie and Clark (though her idea of “protective” involves shooting first and asking questions never).

Then there’s Sadie’s dad, the guy you’d trust to take down a demonic cult in the middle of the night. Since I mentioned cults, let’s just say Clark has some very enthusiastic fans-some who want to annihilate him, some who want to raise him and join the devil.

Sadie is determined to be the best mom she can be. Which is tricky because of all the above. And yet, she deals with everything with humor, resilience, and just the right amount of “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”

I liked Donny Cates’ writing - it’s sharp, witty, and packed with emotional gut punches. He makes you laugh at Sadie’s internal monologue about being the world’s youngest apocalyptic mom and a moment later divers some truly heartbreaking moments. The artwork by Garry Brown is atmospheric, and it perfectly captures the chaotic demon-fueled action. The ending isn't perfect and could use more time to set things in motion, but it is what it is. I still enjoyed it.

I had a blast reading Babyteeth - it’s hilarious, horrifying, and heartfelt. It shows what it means to fight for your family-even if that family includes the spawn of hell. Fans of supernatural horror, dark comedy, or stories about strong women facing impossible odds - this one is for you.

[Whitney Jamimah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wah wah, this ending was a tad bit of a letdown. At the end of the day, the reports of so many others ended up being true for me as well and I agree that the ending felt rushed. I think this is a common pitfall for the comic medium especially where the build up tends to be great and the ending doesn't quite live up. I think it's hard to finish a story in general but this seems to afflict comics even more than novels. There were still parts of this last deluxe edition that were really great but this whole story would have benefitted greatly from another 5 issues minimum.

[Alex Sarll]

I've completely burned out on Cates' Marvel work, which seems defined by a boring nastiness that's uninspiring enough on projects where it even fits like Venom, and actively offputting when applied to the likes of Thor or the Guardians. And the only creator-owned work I've read from him lately was the first volume of Crossover, which seemed a little too excited by its own high concept (and success with rights issues) to be that concerned about telling a solid story. Still, when I read the first half of this antichrist story four years ago I enjoyed it, so maybe the rest would remind me what he could achieve on his own stuff? Certainly the gleeful horror seems a lot more suitable when it's applied to, you know, literal Hell. And the demonic familiar creature sighted in the book's first year has gone from being small and cute to enormous and even cuter, so that's a good omen. Beyond that, though...there was a glimmer of interest when we finally met the deadbeat dad and at first he seemed to be a fairly harmless fuckboy, pointing out that, if you consider history, there's one faction leader from the War in Heaven who supernaturally sired a child that led to thousands of years of war, and it wasn't him. But no, turns out the Father of Lies is just a lying father, and the antichrist is the antichrist, and the endgame continues along deeply predictable lines. Since I read the first volume, Good Omens was adapted for TV – and, unlike certain Gaiman and Pratchett projects since, adapted very well. Hell, even the second volume of Mark Millar's American Jesus has a certain lunatic brio, still playing with conspiracy theories long after that stopped being safe territory for cult art. Whereas the tail-end of Babyteeth just plods through an apocalypse by numbers, not helped by Brown and Englert's art, which may well be deliberately ugly given the topic, but is nonetheless very ugly.

(Edelweiss ARC)

[Ameda · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little more flat than the previous edition,,, i think i expected more of the fight again the devil but it was more like family and love which is good but it would have been better to balance both,,, the gates of hell open and then u never see the actual damage it does or get a good sense of how these characters live through it or experience it

too many time skips like it’s actually crazy,, how does clark even get powerful enough to kill the devil,,, w a regular ass sword,,,, what abt the rest of the kids,,, there’s a whole story within those 65 years just gone fr,,, ouch

[Angry_Tree_Hugger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Year one was so good and this was just plainly rush.

I feel like the author got bored and just end it quickly.