I’m not saying that the world would be better if Pacific Rim’s Kaiju War were real, but I’m also saying that yes the world would be better if Pacific Rim’s Kaiju War were real and we’d gotten Jaegers out of the conflict that cost the lives of millions of people. Shut up, it’s my article and I can contradict myself if I want to.
You have to ask yourself though, what would the world be like after the first Kaiju War had ended? Jaeger technology would be out in the wild, coastal cities would be in ruins and survivors wouldn’t be in short supply. That’s a question that Legendary’s Pacific Rim Aftermath comics are attempting to answer, as it shines a spotlight on three characters: Former Vulcan Specter Jaeger pilot Joshua Griffin, Stacker Pentecost’s son Jake and Hannibal “Where’s my goddamn shoe” Chau.
What do Jaeger pilots do when they’re disconnected from the drift and left to fend for themselves when the world no longer worships them? Does the Drift hold secrets within it that can connect a son to his dead father? What happens when you spend a couple of hours cutting your way out from inside a Kaiju whose blood happens to have a certain corrosive effect on biological matter?
All questions that writer Cavan Scott and artists Richard Elson and Beni Lobel seek to answer. It’s a fascinating world when you think about it, a seedy underbelly of illegal giant robot technology and people left behind by a war that rocked the ocean itself to its very core with nuclear fire. Hell, the idea of the mob even having access to jaeger technology is wonderfully ridiculous. Imagine gangsters using tanks and fighter jets in the real world, as an example.
And yet, that’s what I love about Pacific Rim, a franchise that revels in the absurd and makes it utterly cool. Aftermath ties into that core idea with its own twists that results in black market mechas spilling out onto the streets. Pacific Rim Uprising can’t get here soon enough, but Aftermath is scratching my Jaeger action itch nicely until it does arrive later this month on the big screen.
Last Updated: March 13, 2018