In this finale to the second installment of Lady Killer, many things come to an incredibly bloody conclusion. Is it good?
Joelle Jones doesn’t hold back in this final issue, packing in action, backstory, and a LOT of gore in almost every panel. She starts in backstory, Josephine as a small child with her mother, slowly exposing the fact that her chosen profession was almost predestined.
Switching back to the present, the rest of the issue is the final boss battle between Josie and Irving, with Greta also getting in the action. The series wraps up on a couple of major plot points, which I won’t spoil, but both change everything about the story going forward, and tying it into the previous series.
Is It Good?
After a five month gap between issues and this being the final issue in the series, #5 has a lot riding on it. In some ways, it echoes #5 of the first Lady Killer series, but instead of watching a carefully executed plan play out, we get a brutal, desperate battle for survival, more Tarantino than James Bond.
That’s not a bad thing – Michelle Madsen gets to play beautifully with her color palettes, highlighting each injury and stab with bursts of color and light. I especially liked how she played the 60s pinks and teals of the household against the black blood and red fire. Jones also gets creative with her panel layouts, breaking each sequence of the fight into different arrangements, giving your eyes interesting paths to follow.
I love the use of the floor plan.
Even for a book that isn’t afraid of gore, this issue takes it to a whole new level. There’s a sequence involving Irving, a brick, and his face that felt almost gratuitous, and multiple sequences that stretched believability that anyone could keep fighting after getting that kind of damage. Beautifully executed, but I wish there had been a little more story, especially when what we’ve been waiting for since the premise of this book was introduced finally happened.
It’s definitely leaving things in a very interesting place for the next series, which I’m hoping we won’t have to wait years to get. I need more Josie in my life.
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