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Nov 09, 2015 Web Exclusive By Jeremy Nisen

A prequel to Paul Pope’s Battling Boy, focused on a younger Aurora West, this book tracks Aurora’s training under her father, hero Haggard West, and his assistant/Aurora’s near-mother figure Ms. Grately. Aurora has theories about which monster killed her mother when she was a child, and though she’s grown enough that Haggard allows her to come with him on missions, she longs to break out solo so she can hunt down that killer. But reality doesn’t meet her expectations, and the answers she ultimately finds are surprising.

This volume never quite manages the wonderful weirdness of Battling Boy, which engages in a little more mythology/genre-bending. Yet it still has the frenetic oddness of Arcopolis’ monster underground, and a little insight into what makes a couple of them tick. The high-octane action is there, with pretty good art from David Rubin. Of course, when illustrating Paul Pope characters, anyone who isn’t Paul Pope has a tough act to follow (Pope, along with J.T. Petty, wrote this volume).

The Fall of the House of West is a pretty good book on a standalone basis. But since it offers more background and color to the Battling Boy universe’s most driven protagonist, for fans of the series, it’s a surefire win. (www.firstsecondbooks.com)

Author rating: 7/10