My weirdest comic of the year so far is back this week with Red Roots #4, and it gets a little less weird thanks to some handy answers. I can’t say it’s a full deep dive on lore and explanations, but it’s enough to ease the mind of a frustrated reader. If the first three issues were about setting the scene and its characters, issue #4 is the turning point towards enlightenment.
After the all-out war of Red Roots #3, including one of our main characters nearly dying, Red Roots #4 is about recovery now that the next battle is a day away. Red Roots #4 opens in a military plane, where Dante is kind to a person sitting next to them, but soon we see they’re some kind of monster. He’s jolted awake in a shallow green pool of bodies, and we soon learn from Katherine that he was being healed with other wounded from the war. A bizarre opening to say the least.
From there, our two main characters get a bit of a tour from a human woman named Itsari who knows things. Writer and artist Lorenzo De Felici is aware of how readers are probably feeling, given her dialogue that reads, “I’m here to explain the basics, so you can stop irritating everybody with your never-ending questions.” I, for one, was growing impatient with the lack of answers, and thankfully, Itsari delivers enough to gather the stakes and situation. Thrown into her explanations are Katherine’s further questions, like whether the red roots are a metaphor or literal, and again De Felici is clearly anticipating the reader’s own questions through her.
Creepy!
Credit: Image
Outside of Itsari’s tour, we learn a bit more about Grit, the ogre creature that found both our main characters. Through a convo with him and a healer, we learn he may have nefarious plans for our human characters, or at the very least a plot to be hatched. This creates an interesting new subplot to follow, which turns into a curious cliffhanger.
From a structural standpoint, it’s somewhat fascinating to start to get a sense of what the purpose is for this series a whopping four issues into it. The first issue was immediately interesting for its own character-building reasons, followed by all-out chaos and confusion due to war in the next two, but now we’re starting to understand what it could all mean. At the very least, the rules of the fantasy world are coming more into focus.
Red Roots #4 feels like the reward for readers who embraced the uncertainty of its opening chapters. Lorenzo De Felici peels back just enough of the world’s mysteries to make the larger conflict easier to follow without sacrificing the eerie atmosphere that makes the series so compelling. The explanations arrive naturally through the characters, while new questions surrounding Grit ensure there’s still plenty left to uncover. The pace slows after the previous issue’s chaos, but the added clarity gives the story renewed momentum heading into its next major battle.
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