Review by Frank Plowright
Set in a world of perpetual snow and ice within a large trench, Snow Angels focuses on two young girls. Milliken is just twelve, and her birthday proved a day of revelation and tragedy in Volume 1. She’s accompanied by her younger sister Mae Mae. The rules by which they live their lives have proved to be flawed, and now without their father and their community slaughtered they’ve decided to risk breaching their community’s rule stating no-one must ever leave the trench.
Jeff Lemire provides an early revelation confirming the armoured being seen in Volume 1 as human, and operating technology beyond their armour. It’s the introduction to another swerve into different territory as several new people are introduced, and the girls’ lifelong beliefs are completely undermined.
Once again, Jock maximises the artistic potential of the conditions. There can be no accusations of him coasting by providing a few curved lines indicating icy scenery and leaving everything else for the colourist as he provides the full art. He defines the appalling harshness evocatively, gives the girls real character, and his shadows are equally suited to depicting aspects when the world expands.
Having lived such an isolated life with entrenched beliefs, being dragged into a new world is a vast culture shock for Milliken and Mae Mae, and with their certainties erased they have to navigate strange communities and choose what to believe. This disorientation is well communicated by Milliken’s first person narrative, and Lemire uses her as the discovery point for readers in supplying the complete background to the world of Snow Angels. There are no handy captions noting flashbacks, which is the only impairment to Volume 2 not standing alone as Volume 1 did. Both are combined for a Library Edition.
This is a more traditional action thriller than the opening volume, and a greater journey of discovery and revelation. Lemire resorts more to dramatic tropes, but in the end Snow Angels proves life-affirming in providing what anyone would want for plucky, but helpless characters.
