The City Beneath Her Feet Review
Romance in storytelling isn’t as fun when it’s clean. When it’s complicated, messy, and even disastrous, that’s when it really lands for me. Nothing in love is one note, and stories about it shouldn’t be either. I want stories about messy people falling for each other and the complications that come with that. Love is a journey you go through with someone else, but it’s also one of self-discovery through someone else. The City Beneath Her Feet bites into love like a hot dog from a street vendor. It’s a little sketchy, it’s fleeting, and sometimes you end up covered in red.
The City Beneath Her Feet by James Tynion IV, Elsa Charretier, Jordie Bellaire, and Aditya Bidikar follows Jasper Jayne. She was the girl of Zara’s dreams, but their brief relationship came and went in such an intense blaze that Zara was left thinking Jasper was just that… a dream. Years later, Zara is thrust back into Jasper’s world — unknowingly listed as her emergency contact, Zara must piece together the mystery of Jasper’s life, all while being hunted by the assassins who once called Jasper one of their own.
Sometimes in your life, love and people come through like a storm. In The City Beneath Her Feet, Jasper Jayne is that storm for everyone she meets. She’s an assassin with a love of Stephen King who shows up when and wherever she wants, which means Zara’s life revolves around that storm. James Tynion IV and Elsa Charretier have created two wonderful characters who fall in love despite all the turmoil around them.
Zara falls head over heels for the flighty Jasper in a chance meeting. It sets the story with such poise, with two characters who quickly realize what is happening between them. The initial meet-cute hooked me like literal hooks under my skin. I was pulled to root for them despite the pain I knew was in store. Everything from that moment had me in the palm of its hand. The eccentricities of New York and the characters who live within it, with James Tynion’s voice propelling them forward, made this a love story unlike any other.
Elsa Charretier and Jordie Bellaire are doing levels of art in The City Beneath Her Feet that hasn’t been seen since the Sistine Chapel. Jordie Bellaire is one of the best colorists to ever work in comics, and her palette of exuberant vibrancy, paired with Charretier’s sleek style, makes for a book worth the ticket price to see what wonders it holds. Every character is eye-catching, with wonderful designs that reflect who they are.
With the story driven by fantastical, larger-than-life characters surrounding Zara, the humble writer, the art never slows down. Every page is drenched in bombastic colors that fill the page corner to corner. There isn’t a page of this that doesn’t stand on its own as a masterpiece of artistic storytelling. With the bombastic nature of it all, Aditya Bidikar brings the thunder with his lettering of the issue. Each sound effect is just as big as the personalities within the characters.
With comics having deep roots in romance, The City Beneath Her Feet continues that legacy with a larger-than-life love story. But more importantly, it explores how love can come in so many forms that sometimes take time to fully understand. Love can be messy and exploratory while still leaving you without in the end, but love never truly leaves you.
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