Hell hath risen, and the crew of the Event Horizon is beginning to realize they’re in it. The screams from hell only grow louder in Event Horizon: Dark Descent #3, as Christian Ward and Tristan Jones push the nightmare to its breaking point. The last issue left the surviving crew splintering under the weight of their own sins. Reality is bleeding, bodies piling up, and sanity is collapsing under the glow of the gravity drive and the red hell out there, windows. Now, Captain John Kilpack’s desperate transmission rings through the void, a doomed plea from a man who’s seen too much: “Libera te tutemet ex inferis.”
Issue #3 drags us deeper into the inferno. Event Horizon: Dark Descent #3 opens with Peter, one of the crew, 2 years prior to the current events. We learn early on that he has cancer and wants to get on the ship to see things “worthy of a thousand lifetimes.” He appears to be getting what he wished for, as is seen in the second and third pages, which are a double-page spread of the fleshy hell surrounding the Event Horizon.
While the captain speaks to the crew, new monstrosities are brewing. One is literally birthed on the page, and Jones makes you feel its writhing, fleshy, grotesque quality in every panel. The beast adds a direct problem to the issue, giving it a beginning, middle, and end. The fact that it absorbs the crew as it kills them adds to the disturbing nature of the issue.
Hell sure is…fleshy.
Credit: IDW
Ward continues to do great work with the writing, drawing you into the humanity of these characters. The writing can be clever, too, like when a boy with shards of glass in his head says he has “a very sharp mind.” The leader of the hellish events on the ship continues to be absolutely intriguing. Jones draws you with its height and freakish body, while Ward gives it a cryptic message to a crew member. There is some kind of plan in all of this, making the events less chaotic and giving every murder some focus.
One gripe I have with this issue is Peter, who gets a character backstory. His purpose and heroic move have an explanation, but the backstory, which we see in just two pages, feels quite simple. Devoting two pages to the flashback feels almost unnecessary, and we could have used a bit more of him to make his heroic act even more heartfelt.
Event Horizon: Dark Descent #3 is a masterclass in cosmic horror – a blood-soaked descent into despair that’s as artful as it is agonizing. Christian Ward and Tristan Jones continue to prove this adaptation is transcending the cult film, blending visceral terror with philosophical weight. If there’s a hell in comics, it looks (and sounds) like this.
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