REVIEW: The Pound #2

How are a pair of dog catchers supposed to deal with a werewolf? For that matter, why are there werewolves in Cleveland? Find some answers after the jump.

THE POUND #2
Writer: Stephan Nilson
Artist: Karl Waller
Colorist: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: Charles Pritchett
Cover Artist: Karl Waller and Ron Riley
Publisher: Frozen Beach Studios
Price: $1.99

Previously in The Pound: Scott Allison and Howie Lynch have just been laid off from their animal control job with the city of Cleveland. After some discussion, and unsolicited aid from the school, the pair decides to open their own vermin control business, The Pound. Two weeks later, a night job manages to get them a large do that turns out to be a werewolf and tagged another with a tranq.

WEREWOLVES OF CLEVELAND

The story opens on some gangland hooligans harassing a lady jogging in the park. Instead of being scared, the lady convinces (through sex and pheromones?) the leader to shoot the rest. Well, she turns out to be some sort of monster (probably a werewolf though she never transforms) and kills the last. As she’s ready to start supper, the second werewolf from the previous issue shows up exhausted, lets her know of the fate of their “friend”, falls into her lap, passes out and turns human.
We then jump back to our protagonists as they discuss the issue of the naked man in the cage in their truck. In fact a fair chunk of the rest of the issue is discussion with small bits of action breaking it up. Though this may seem boring (which it wasn’t), it was necessary to set up the world. It turns out the werewolf is actually a decent guy named Darnell Stahly who just couldn’t get out of the city before his change. He takes the two out for breakfast and hires them to keep him locked up for the rest of the full moon, though he does hurry them out when he recognizes one of the other patrons, the second male wolf from earlier. We do get some good back story on the wolves and character building with Scott’s family as well.
The final scene is all action. Darnell shows up a bit earlier while Scott is at home and Howie isn’t able to restrain him well enough and calls for help, while Scott is trying to explain to his wife the situation (yes, all of it) and she doesn’t believe him, but the picture Howie sends changes that quickly. Scott arrives and we get a full sequence of man vs. beast with the best way to distract a werewolf ever alongside a brilliant ploy for subduing him. Of course, both of these moments do need to be read to fully appreciate so I won’t spoil them here.

SNARLING DEATH BEASTS

So we don’t actually get a lot of werewolves in the issue, but when we do they are presented with exactly the right emotions in mind. The humans look good, with a decent variance and recognizable characters, however a few expressions were rather, off, though it didn’t bother me much. The only thing that did faze me was the steam clouds from people’s breath. I understand it was supposed to show that the area was cold, but they did not feel right; more looking like a floating ball of goop then one’s breath on a cold day.

BOTTOM LINE: WORTH IT

While this was a slow issue, it was still worth reading and gave a lot of information that was going to be needed for the story to progress. My only problem now is that this is digital only, which I don’t normally care for, but may start looking into now, since I do want to see where the series goes from here. Either way, this issue gets a good 3 out of 5 stars.