Alec King is having the worst day of his life and just wants to end it all and kill himself, but finds out he can not die in Last Mortal.

King is the your typical down on his luck criminal.  He takes small jobs here and there to make some quick cash.  The jobs never earn him enough to get him out of the criminal lifestyle and this new job is no different.

When returning back to his hideout he finds his best friend, Brian Leuter, bloody and beaten up with a man walking out as King is walking in.  Leuter spent the money which was supposed to be used to pay off their debt to a criminal.

However, the good news is he gave them a way to clear their debts.  If they killed the district attorney who was running for mayor all debts will be considered paid.  The plan fell apart immediately and resulted in Leuter’s death and it was King’s fault.

Overcome with grief and remorse King put a gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.  However, he woke up and discovered he couldn’t die. When King tried to leave town he discovered he was deep in a conspiracy.

Last Mortal was written by John Mahoney and Filip Sablik with art by Thomas Nachlik and Marcio Menyz.  BOOM! Studios published the book in 2016.

I was looking forward to seeing what would happen in this book.  A person who can not die can be a really good springboard for an interesting story.  Death is the the ultimate consequence of one’s actions. However, when that is taken off the table, the sky’s the limit.  King can take on a superhero-like quest to right the world’s wrongs starting with his own.

We unfortunately do not get the kind of story I was hoping for.  The story is very small scale and only focused of King and his life.  I am fine with that, but it dragged out his stuff too much. The conspiracy stuff was a good added touch, but it wasn’t fully flushed out as to why it was there and the planning of the conspiracy.  It was just there and the conspiracy happened to work.

I really wanted to know why King couldn’t die.  Was it magic, or voodoo, or science experiment, or evolution or is he an alien?  We never get an answer to that question. I also don’t know how long he has had this ability and how long it would last.  It could be like a nine lives type thing which would have really raised the stakes if King knew that. However, it could be a time period like for 10 years King can’t die.

A little background on the why, how and when of King’s ability would have added a lot of depth to the story.

King was written well with a good amount of relatability.  He is just trying to survive and got in over his head before he even knew he was in the water.  However, the rest of the characters aside from the antagonist have no depth. I have no idea of their motives or why they are doing these things or what they have to gain.  One character who seems to be an ally to King just disappears and we don’t hear from them again.

I liked the book and can see a lot of really cool ideas and concepts, but the book just skipped past a lot of interesting places it could have gone.  The framework of a really cool story is there but it is just a framework with nothing built upon it.

Rating:

3/5

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