Stephen
King’s The Stand is one of those books that, after you’ve read it, it shows on
you like some phantom badge of pride. “Yes, I made it through with my heart and
soul intact.”

            The comic
adaptation reads the same way. It creeks along at a breakneck pace and it’s
only after you stop reading that you realize this is not a tale about people,
this is a tale about America.

            Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa does such a phenomenal job capturing the tone and the spirit of
the book it’s hard to believe King isn’t whispering in his ear as he writes the
scripts.

            The art by
Mike Perkins and the coloring by Laura Martin could not fit the story better if they tried.

            The Stand
is as American as you can get as far as spirit and scope. From the sky scrapers
of Manhattan, to the quiet, maybe
too quiet, neighborhoods of Dover,
it is a story about America.
About how she almost died, and how she finally came home.