It wasn’t that I was bored with issue #3 of Blow Away. Rather, in a five-issue arc, you’re going to have that one issue where things slow down and prepare for the grand finale. In the case of Blow Away, it was actually a smart and strategic movie, as we enter the final stretch of this arctic murder mystery with a veritable avalanche of happenings and general excitement.
Writer Zac Thompson has been really careful in balancing this story’s many tentpoles. Because it’s as much a murder mystery between climbers Red and Blue as much as it’s about whether our lead, Brynne, is on solid ice following some heretofore mysterious life event. But in issue #4, Thompson does more wonders by aligning all of these ideas in a massive way. I don’t want to spoil too much, but this penultimate issue spends a chunk of time breaking down the other recent-ish events in Brynne’s life, showing the traumatic moment on a past assignment that informed her sense of paranoia, her need to disconnect out on Mount Asgard, and why she may think she saw what she did (and the sense of profound grief she’s dealing with from all of this).
It’s a way to cut right to the heart of the character in a major way as well as to sow further seeds of doubt and uncertainty in the actual case. But even then, the Red/Blue murder mystery develops in a way that perhaps Brynne’s actually onto something, and there’s so many layers to this that even she can’t fully comprehend. The end result is this powerful melding of psychological drama and solid noir, a case that keeps you guessing with the most beautiful kind of robust uncertainty.
We know now Brynne in a way we didn’t before, and we can’t help but see the world as she does with the same doubt, anger, and a kind of “hope” that she’s not wrong and that her instincts haven’t led her to make another complicated “mistake.” (You’ll see why the air quotes upon reading the issue — hers is a hugely complicated situation and it’s powerful in its goals and sense of impact.)
Courtesy of BOOM! Studios.
I think stories in this vein — see Rear Window — it’s easy to automatically doubt the main character. But having this added bit of insight and background does a lot to make Brynne not only a massively sympathetic character, but to inform why that kind of uncertainty is a good thing and why it helps facilitate this more engaging and involved mystery that hums with deeply human energies and context that extends it beyond any similar titles/outings.
Up and down, right and wrong feel so wonderfully nebulous here, and we’re right there with Brynne in trying to sort it all out, and we’re not given any lifelines or free passes to aid in that struggle. It’s that massive emotional thread that makes this a kind of noir that feels compelling and always deeply respectful of our time and insights as readers. I may know what outcome I want, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, and that’s exactly what we need here.
At the same time as issue #3 suffered from some minor development issues, it also felt like there wasn’t nearly as much action or intensity across that chapter. Instead, I think the art (from artist Nicola Izzo, colorists Francesco Segala and Gloria Martinelli, and letterer DC Hopkins) focused more on playing with setting to highlight some ideas and influence our mood. In issue #4, though, we get both aspects/elements combined in wondrous fashion.
Courtesy of BOOM! Studios.
A lot of that centers around Brynne and the still mysterious hunter that’s shown up a few times. The pair have a rather heated, multifaceted confrontation in a cave after Brynne is rescued from her fall at the end of issue #3. There’s lots of intensity and uncertainty baked into every moment of their back-and-forth, from the way certain objects of interest are highlighted to the sharpness of glances and even the way light and shadow interplay brilliantly. It’s about violence on a few different levels, and it takes an approach to action that never ignores or mitigates the emotion and humanity and does its best to make you feel as uncomfortable as you are excited with this sudden uptick.
The same ideas hold true elsewhere in this issue — when Brynne is recuperating, for instance, there’s a kind of kinetic energy and overarching intent that makes these “slower” moments seem filled with as much power and energy (while focusing more on story developments rather than just letting moments and emotions resonate as they need to). In these instances, including a newscast with special relevance to the Red-Blue case, everything just feels both slightly hazy (like some half-remember fever dream) and sharp in all the right ways (the angle of someone’s eye or the way a mood practically hangs in the room).
Courtesy of BOOM! Studios.
It’s a really powerful aesthetic, and one that aligns all of the ideas and sentiments of this book in a way that you can’t help but feel the sense of uncertainty, anxiety, powerlessness, and agitation. It makes the tone and mood of this chapter all the more wonderfully inescapable and clear that you can have excitement without ruining the intimacy while also having something tight and focused that practically vibrates with energy and life.
If I had to boil Blow Away #4 down to a single word, it’d be “exciting.” It’s an issue that tried to balance ideas and sensations with the utmost sense of consistency and engagement, achieving success through its sheer passion and motivation. We’re certainly on the path toward an especially robust finale, and one that I hope will give us resolution (even if I’m OK with being teased till the bitter end). I was going to potentially save this till the series’ end, but this issue certainly blew me away with its many varied accomplishments.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login