Book Review: Birthright vol #1

Book: Birthright volume #1: Homecoming (issues #1-5) by Joshua Williamson with illustrations by Andrei Bressan with color by Andriano Lucas

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Publisher: Image Comics

Description:

For the Rhodes family, losing their son was the most devastating thing that could have occurred...but it couldn't prepare them for what happened when he returned.


Rating: 5 stars

Review:

This was impressive. The first volume finds the Rhodes family dealing with the disappearance of the youngest son Mikey on his birthday. He went into the woods to collect a baseball and never returned. Due to speculations that the father Aaron may have had something to do with the missing boy since he was the last one to see him, the family dynamics quickly fell apart. The mother Wendy left after starting to believe all the allegations, the older brother Brennan however continued to search for his brother while the father started to go downhill.

However, a year later the family was in for a big surprise when they were called in by the FBI. A strange man who resembles either Conan the Barbarian or a brunet Thor was picked up in the woods claiming to be Mikey but also telling a fantastic story about being in another world. Despite all the evidences that this is Mikey the mother still wants to believe that the father had something to do with their son's disappearance. I got the feeling that Wendy was looking for any excuse to blame Aaron for everything, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to this story than just her unbridled anger towards her husband.

Anyway, the story focused on the reason for Mikey's return, he says he's there to stop five mages who have escaped from the other world. Meanwhile the story also shows his time in the other world and why he had been taken there in the first place. There is more going on than it seems with Mikey's return which added another twist to the story.

Birthright was a very good fantasy adventure story, it was fast paced and had great artwork. This ends with a very interesting cliffhanger that left me very interested in wanting to read more from this series.