In the distant future, a war-torn London is inhabited by genetically created soldiers who can withstand sickness and poisons. The soldiers were discarded here because the air is still full of noxious gasses. In exchange for being able to continue living, the soldiers work in slave-like factories guarded by extremely well-built humans. Since the clone soldiers were made in factories and breed for war, the humans decreed that the clones had no rights as people, and any contact between a human and a clone soldier was forbidden. Hybrid babies of any coupling were killed immediately for fear of what that creation would be. But, Oliver’s mother was strong, and she climbed her way through the ruins to give birth to Oliver among a camp of soldiers. The soldiers manage to keep Oliver from their overseers. Oliver is supremely agile, has a sped-up aging cycle, and grows hair; unlike all the soldiers, who are bald. Things start to get messy when Oliver begins to question how the world works and why the soldiers are treated terribly. He proves he has gotten the best of both worlds—super speed, agility, fighting skills, and human sentiments like morality and emotions. He also proves that they have been right all along to fear a hybrid of a human and a clone soldier.
Oliver is full of action and just the right dose of world building to suck the reader into the plight of the clone soldiers. The reason for the war remains a mystery, and potentially is not even an important point of this narrative, but rather, the foundation is laid for Oliver to become a vengeful force-to-be-reckoned-with in the next volume. There are some moments in this volume that add depth away from the violence and fighting. We do get that quintessential moment of “please sir, may I have some more.” That, and the setting of London are the only two similarities so far to the Dickens’ novel. All of the soldiers have adopted names from literature, mostly Shakespeare, instead of the numbers they were assigned and that are still used by their human keepers.
Fans of The Boys will find Darick Robertson’s soldiers resemble Billy Butcher very closely. Otherwise, Robertson’s illustrations are full of heavy lines and immaculate detail of the decay of London. Diego Rodriguez has a color palette for every occasion: London is full of browns and dark colors, while Oliver’s red scarf draws the eye into wherever the boy is on the page; nighttime is full of purples and blues; the human world is tinged with a sinister green.
Image’s rating is for Older Teen due to the bloody violence and some adult themes. While the action and intrigue of this title was enjoyable, this would be more suited to public libraries with large collections or followings of apocalypse stories. Give this adventure to fans of Undiscovered Country or Little Bird.
