The final chapter in the ongoing crossover mystery The Six Fingers and The One Hand ends this week with The Six Fingers #5. Dan Watters and Ram V have orchestrated a new kind of mystery due to its dual perspectives and sci-fi truths. With The One Hand #5, we learned a massive secret, and in The Six Fingers #5, we get the other perspective on life, death, and motivation to find purpose.
The fascinating thing about The Six Fingers #5 is we feel like we know everything once we start reading. The major reveal is out there, but writer Dan Watters and artist Sumit Kumar manage to find further meaning as this story wraps up. It’s an interesting way to enter the final finale of a crossover mystery, changing the reader’s relationship to the remaining unknowns.
The Six Fingers #5 opens with the art dealer under questioning at the police office. She’s telling the police officer a story about Newton’s pendulum. It’s about the thought that things can go on forever and the utter truth that things eventually stop and die always.
Obsessed with Johannes, one might assume there’s a connection between Newton’s pendulum and Johannes. Given Johannes’ obsession with a ball with a spike on it, one might also make a connection between the objects. To say the final reveal had my mouth agape is an understatement. I gasped. Avoiding spoilers, but this opening conversation is an awesome bookend to the final moments in this issue.
I wonder if this is something Watters actually experienced.
Credit: Image
Much of this issue, however, is focused on Johannes prior to Ari finding him in the airport. Like previous issues, Watters and Kumar fill in some gaps as to how characters got to places and the revelations not revealed in the other series. That includes Johannes’ last murder and some conclusions he comes to.
This issue uncovers mysteries, although I won’t say what they are. One of the biggest reveals leads to one of the more horrific images in the series. It involves suicide and is actually plausible, given the revelation uncovered. It’s an unnerving idea that suggests this is the end, although the final two pages thankfully reveal there is more story to tell. Like any great mystery the revelations in this issue will make you want to reread the entire crossover again.
Kumar draws an excellent issue, especially on the final page. The layout is killer on that final page, with a double-page splash that’s awesome, two pages before it. Colors by Lee Loughridge add a hopeful glow in lighting that almost seems unfair. The murder is also gruesome, with the facial expressions horrific as the victim dies in great pain.
The Six Fingers #5 sneaks up on you with seemingly obtuse conversations that lead to a shocking final page. Make no mistake, this is the most fun you’ll have with any mystery comic in the last decade. It’s great in its sci-fi underpinnings, brutal murders, and mind-blasting mystery.
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