Synopsis
Reincarnation is real, and two soldiers who have been part of a war that has raged for centuries wake up in new bodies, each on a quest to find the other. Mali and Tessa have lived hundreds of different lives throughout time, caught up in an eternal cycle as they take part in a war so old that neither side remembers what they’re fighting for anymore. As Mali wakes up in her newest life, she suddenly becomes self-aware and starts to question everything, especially why she continues to fight. But elsewhere, Tessa is already on the hunt.
From: BOOM! Studios
Notes on This Title
The main characters in this series reincarnate as different genders.
This series depicts a high degree of gun specific violence. Sexual acts as well as nudity are sparse and not drawn in great detail, no genitalia is shown.
Awards
None.
Reviews
“Welcome Back #1 would be the start of a perfectly charming, angst-ridden coming of age story…were it not for all the katanas. Quinn dreams of past lives as a samurai from feudal Japan, a long-decreased FBI Agent, an expired ‘80s hitman straight from Miami Vice and countless other warrior intermissions. Eventually, she deciphers that she’s the most recent reincarnation of a badass, yet doomed, soldier/assassin who dates back to prehistoric times.” (Source: Paste Magazine)
Interviews
CBR: “EXCLUSIVE: Sebela, Sawyer Bring “Welcome Back” To Life At BOOM!”
SKTCHD: “Chris Sebela and Claire Roe Talk the Art Change and Future of We(l)come Back”
From the description, I was expecting something like in the old Highlander series/movies, but alas, this comic does not even try to make sense of why they fight or present the immortal characters as having learned anything from their long lives (other than ways to kill people, and a deap-seated nihilism and misanthropy toward the rest of humanity) or having used their 100,000 years worth of lives to develop an interesting personality. Methos these characters ain’t.
The “plot” of the story, what little there is, feels like just an excuse to string together a lot of scenes of literally pointless scenes of hyperviolence and long, “philosophical” narration texts about how great pointless violence and killing feels. Like the male creator just wanted to realize a “chicks fighting” fantasy. And the characters in whose head the reader is forced to spend a lot of time (they’re constantly narrating) are unrelatable because the characterization goes back and forth between “damaged, depressed, developmentally stunted girl we’er supposed to pity” and “full-blown psychopath who enjoys hurting people” willy-nilly. And in the end of the first volume we’re supposed to believe these psychos are in love…
But for what it’s worth, in the life before this one, they were both male (one of them black, the other white) and in the (brief) scene they were shown and given lines, they were implied to be in a more normal relationship. There was on-page kissing between the guys, too, just before they commit double suicide.
I wasn’t motivated to waste even more time on this, so I didn’t read the second volume.