Welcome to another edition of Last Call Comics. Here, as we continually bolster AIPT’s weekly comics coverage, we catch any titles that might’ve fallen through the cracks. Or those books that we might not cover but still deserve a little spotlight. Either way, it’s a chance to explore more comics, generate some novel insights, and maybe add to everyone’s to-be-read pile.
Once more, happy New Comic Book Day to everyone.
The Sacrificers #3
Courtesy of Image Comics.
So far the ratio of sadness to joy in The Sacrificers has skewed heavy on the former. (But when it’s joy like the love shared between our “hero” Pigeon and his sister, it’s compelling enough to survive a story that’s basically, “Come watch these folks get sacrificed to terrible gods!”)
But with issue #3, the entire team — writer Rick Remender, artist Max Fiumara, and colorist Dave McCaig — skewed the numbers a bit to make something all the more joyous — right until the anvil of unrelenting sadness was dropped squarely on our collective faces.
Perhaps the best way to understand that shift, as it were, is to explore what Fiumara and McCaig have done from a visual standpoint. The bulk of the issue centered around a party for the gods, and it’s here we got to see the initial Alice in Wonderland-ness that truly defined this issue. The art team was able to show off with a world full of some decidedly inventive gods, like Kronius (lord of labor and gears) that looked like a steampunk Greek king, or Queen Luna, the terrifying and beguiling goddess of the tides.
The latter, especially, captured the mix of whimsy and monstrosity that defined these gods, which felt like a powerful shorthand for understanding their place in the world and our relationship to them. (Which is to say, indulgent tools and a mighty allegory for our own times.) It’s especially Alice-esque in that we’re meant to think of silliness and magic even as we can’t ever fully ignore that undercurrent of fear and discomfort that defines a lot of these gods. That’s a truly powerful way to make the reader squirm, especially when some magical, pseudo-pixie attendants start dancing around and rhyming to the sacrifices. It’s the further development of a neat little dynamic that’s been a part of popular culture for many years (see Labyrinth), as we still struggle in the amber of how delightful it all looks and the way the dirty bits remind us perpetually that something is utterly and unceasingly wrong.
After the quiet joy and heartache of issue #2, this felt like a giant gesture to grab the reader and spin them into a world that is as inviting as it is like being slowly chewed on rabid beasts. While a lot of that comes from the look and feel of the world, and how it balances influences (Alice and Labyrinth, yes, but also Pan’s Labyrinth) to prod readers, it’s also something more subtle. (I mean, besides the creepy rhyming and giving Pigeon a truly beautiful moment amid all of this psychic chaos.) It comes with the issue’s finale, where we get a clearer idea of how the whole sacrifice process actually works. Even if I don’t reveal what it actually is, it’s bound to make you feel so deeply miniscule and pathetic. A quiet moment with big implications that I’ve likened to Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God: the way the protagonist’s death is breezed over toward the book’s ending will gut you in full and leave you wading in the mess. That’s exactly how I felt with that brilliant final page, and even some time later I’m incapable of picking it all up and moving on. (It’s all about the subtext, and it expertly drives home the book’s themes of us vs. them).
And that’s how I want to leave most books: not sure of what will happen next because the moment never fully lands in my heart and mind. But I do know at least one thing about issue #4, and that is we can expect yet another “flavor” of emotional devastation. Let’s hope this one goes down as smoothly before it boils our insides with wonderful pain and fear.
Final Thought: The world is a bright and awful place and I shan’t turn away.
Score: 9/10
Cat Fight #4
Courtesy of IDW.
Issue #3 of Cat Fight was a big moment for our unwilling hero Felix Lamarr. As the young thief became the center player in a globe-spanning conspiracy — solving the death of his grandmother Kitty, saving his friend Tabitha, realizing his destiny as a master thief, and trying to keep his head firmly on his shoulders — this thriller hit fourth gear.
So what happened as we entered the pivotal next chapter (and the fourth of just six issues)? Why, a turn that’ll have you wailing like an angry kitty cat.
I dare not spoil too much, but suffice to say this issue focuses on a big reveal and turn that coalesces really quite brilliantly — creating some huge stakes and aligning in such a way that it feels massive in its impact. (And it’ll cut Felix down to his very core at a rather important moment in his life.) But even more than that, it keeps Felix as the central figure in this whodunit as the one to put it all together, and that’s super important.
Because as much as writer Andrew Wheeler has clearly spun a clever and inventive crime thriller, it’s just as much about Felix’s development. Across this issue, there’s so many intriguing steps taken and decisions made to make Felix feel like a new and novel hero type. Whether it’s that endless self doubt and disconnect about his role (he still hasn’t fully accepted his legacy), or his interactions with Blind Tiger (their convo could’ve played out fairly ordinary, but it doesn’t and that adds layers to our lead), Felix is uncomfortable here. Yes, he’s hugely capable and skilled, and a dashing lead at that, but a lot of this storyline is about his emergence into himself and what that means for his place in this wild world of thieving. It’s that sentimental core that makes the twists and turns here land all the more forcefully.
But you can’t fully understand Felix, and really the world at-large here, without the physicality as purveyed by Ilias Kyriazis’ art. If this book is truly about Felix as the unlikely hero developing into this massive world, it’s the visuals that provide the most compelling bits of growth. The way Felix’s fights are more like dances (he takes a very Aladdin-esque approach), and that speaks volumes about his place and his desire to move through things unencumbered (and just how challenging that’s becoming).
When his interactions with Blind Tiger do become a touch more physical, there’s imagery here that plays with our understanding of Felix and his increasing understanding of what he must do and still retain his place in the world (which feels like growing pains if I’ve ever seen ’em). Even the way the issue’s big reveal plays into Felix’s sense of perpetual momentum and creativity, creating a big moment that feels tailored to his unique journey’s speed and path. As much as the narrative tries to keep Felix tackling big ideas, it’s the visuals that pull him along with ample style and grace.
I’m deeply intrigued to see how Felix handles this reveal in issue #5. At this point, I have some idea — we’ve certainly come to know and appreciate him rather well in his story thus far. At the same time, however, he’s evolved so much in these four issues that I don’t know what he may try to do in the struggle to retain his life as he knows it and accept this path placed before him. It’s my hope that it’ll continue to be as nuanced and compelling as ever, and that our little cat burglar keeps sharpening his claws.
Final Thought: This book’s teeth sink even deeper.
Score: 8/10
Black Panther #5
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
The first four issues of Black Panther have been a treat. (Dare I say a delight.) Led by writer Eve Ewing, it’s been a novel way to rebuild/recontextualize T’Challa from the ground up in a new city (Birnin T’Chaka), with a new supporting cast (the awesome Beisa, the promising N’Yobi), and even fresh challenges galore. But with issue #5, things take a sharp turn — and it’s hard to tell if Black Panther’s little sojourn will be a continued success or he’s somehow overstayed his welcome.
Part of the issue’s arc of both success and slightly underwhelming qualities is the art. After some tweaks in the team’s lineup (which I, quite regrettably, haven’t made as much of an emphasis as seems necessary), artist Mack Chater and colorist Andrew Dalhouse handle the issue solo (i.e., outside of the contributions from Chris Allen and Craig Yeung). And it certainly works given a more gritty look/feel overall — after building up this city, we’re getting down and dirty with more insular battles. At the same time, though, the city and people have a different, less effervescent charm, and that feels less like the story “grounding” itself and more like a shift in the tone and general vibe that feels disconnected from the rest of the story somehow. Plus, there’s not nearly enough Beisa involved!
Still, the art’s solid enough, and we get some varied scenes of Black Panther in action that really captures my running Batman comparison (while keeping it very much in his own wheelhouse). But the book further detours from its own ongoing story in some other crucial ways.
This issue really focuses on the burgeoning war between the city’s two main gang families, the Ilonga vs. the Nkisus, which feels like a thrilling enough development. The only issue, then, is 1) there’s too little tension around this as a proper big turn (T’Challa initially handled ’em easy enough) and 2) it seems a little too pedestrian even as T’Challa is doing the whole “grassroots hero” gimmick. It’s compelling enough — it’s a day-to-day kind of villain that mostly keeps some emphasis on Birnin T’Chaka — but it just feels overly layered even as its way a touch too complicated. (It’s sort of like a 7-Layer Burrito but if at least two of those layers were week-old beans and lettuce.) The story before had some real depth because of the humanity of the city, and that doesn’t resonate nearly as much as T’Challa sorts through this intricate and involved gang warfare.
The book at least tries to do something novel within this framework as the issue builds to its grand conclusion: the reveal of Kivu’Ma. The mysterious figure has been hinted at a few times already — N’Yobi is so terrified that he won’t even mention his name — but this issue is the first time he’s shown in full. And it’s…kinda weird? It certainly beats Deathlok as a big bad, but it also feels like a rather odd choice. It’s yet another thing to pull back from the street-level focus of this book and make it feel more united with other Marvel villains (and something significant for T’Challa when that wasn’t meant to be the point. Right?!) It’s a decision that reflects some bigger issue/concern with this issue: a hard turn left when the slow build was great till now. Everything is coalescing in a big way, and yet it just feels like 1+1 is “purple” instead of “2.” Sure, mysticism is essential to the Black Panther canon (as far as I’ll spoil Kivu’Ma), but I just think if we’re telling a new story, the lack of commitment undermines this latest story’s brave attempts.
I think the book could rebound with #6, and maybe even find a way to have their cake and eat it too in regards of balancing these dichotomous notions and pools of characters. I’m not sure how that could be, but it’s a testament to how good this still-young book has been until it went ahead and got a little lost. Just find your way back to the town center before these outskirts eat you alive.
Final Thought: You’re only as good as your villains, it would seem.
Score: 5.5/10
The Midnite Show #1
Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.
I’m a little hesitant of horror. In my many interviews and reviews as of late, I’ve tried to understand the deluge of such titles in recent years. Because as someone who has lived in the same nightmare timeline since 2020 as everyone else, I guess reality remains more terrifying than any ghost story.
But if we’re really trying to figure out why horror remains so vital, we couldn’t have gotten a better new series for the spooky season than The Midnite Show.
Here, writer Cullen Bunn has reunited with artist Brian Hurtt (of the excellent The Sixth Gun) for a deeply meta story about horror itself. And, sure on the one hand, a lot about this series isn’t exactly new or innovative, even as I think that’s mostly the point. But there’s no denying that the whole meta angle feels a little overly familiar — it’s the winking eye that’s come to define our relationship to this genre and its tendency for the overwrought. So, a book about a lost horror film being found and aired, only for it to cause actual monsters to spring up across the world, actually feels like the peak of this tendency to inject some level of ourselves into the confines of horror. While there’s nothing wrong with that — it can, as I’ll explain in just a bit, actually be a good thing — it’s also structurally familiar to so many other recent titles and a larger love of the genre. TL;DR — a good thing among some complicated complex.
It’s a sense of overt awareness that’s only enhanced (and I don’t necessarily mean in an inherently good or bad way) by the work of Hurtt (who is joined by letterer Jim Campbell and colorist Bill Crabtree). Again, the monster designs, be it Dracula or the Creature from the Black Lagoon, aren’t exactly novel. And on one hand I’m split — familiar designs seem to speak to the book’s larger themes and interests from a storytelling and narrative perspective. However, it also really phones in just how meta this book is and how much it’s clearly up its own tuchus. Add in that there’s nothing particularly terrifying, and that the humans in this story feel a little unexceptional and one-note, and it’s a generally serviceable book from a visual department.
There’s some real promise here — the balance of aesthetics and looks between the monsters feels important in creating this singular universe — but nothing exactly that makes me want to rip out my hair out in terror. Which, to reiterate, may not be the point. Because, as I’ve also hinted at earlier, this all seems a little too direct for someone like Bunn, who has written some deeply disturbing tales in the past. So maybe it’s not his goal to scare us but to comment on horror at-large.
Like, what the genre looks like when the aging scream queen makes comments about the real terrors of the industry. The way certain stories seem to repeat themselves, and how this makes a kind of cultural patchwork that engages fans across time. Even the slightly tedious nature of fandom, and the way we play a role in our own horrific experiences. It’s a commentary about horror’s true role as this sometimes ugly, mostly wondrous shared language for exploring anxiety, building connections with others, and understanding certain things about the world that’s far bigger than ourselves.
Bunn’s whole approach feels wholly unflinching, exploring the ups and downs of horror fandom and stories in a way to create a holistic look and delve into its true multifacetedness. Its it a perfect such examination? No, but then the genre itself is a little wonky and uneven, and that feels like maybe a bit of unintended symmetry. But it’s certainly thoughtful and spirited from a structural standpoint, and a great idea to explore why we need horror while uplifting something essential about the genre.
I’ll keep dealing with the hacky mummies and the minor jump scares if the book can present us more nuanced study. Otherwise, the real horror is that this little monster simply has no bite.
Final Thought: A masterclass (and minor drag) in pure horror storytelling.
Score: 6/10
Join the AIPT Patreon
Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:
- ❌ Remove all ads on the website
- 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
- 📗 Access to our monthly book club
- 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
- 💥 And more!
You must be logged in to post a comment.