Marvel’s latest violent Black, White & Blood series wraps up its latest anthology with issue #4, and it’s stacked with incredible creators. Mark Waid and Jorge Fornes deliver a Doctor Strange tale, Anthony Oliveira and Javier Pulido tackle Blade, and Victor LaValle and Bruno De Oliveira wrap things up with The Defenders. In the same vein as anthologies for Venom, Wolverine, Carnage, and the upcoming Logan, there’s a lot to like in these three stories.
Kicking things off is Waid and Fornes’ “Careful What You Wish For,” a story that opens with Doctor Strange doing a surgery. The first page has a B-movie horror vibe to it, which suits the clever story idea and twist on what we’re seeing. Before we know it, Doctor Strange is killing his nurses, and soon we learn the person he’s trying to save is…Well, I won’t say, but he wants to kill them too!
Fornes draws an exceptional tale that’s clean and gets quite chaotic when spells are involved. Waid’s twist on spells is one of the ages, making this a standout start to the issue.
Next up is “Nature Red in Tooth and Claw,” focusing on a vampire and a werewolf. Oliveira and Pulido are a good match, and it’s nice to see Pulido back in comics since his Ultimate Daredevil tale last month. The straight edges of Pulido’s layouts mesh well with his pleasing style and thicker line work.
The story opens with a young man who works in a monastery where all the monks have become vampires. In their stead is a werewolf, making for a rather complicated work-life balance for our main character. At the edges of this tale is Blade, who seeks to clean house. There are interesting themes at work here about faith, forgiveness, and hope, making you want more from the new pairing by the story’s end.
The closing tale offers up plenty of characters.
Credit: Marvel
Closing out this anthology is “The Whisperer in Darkness” by LaValle and Oliveira, in a story that’s not only a good team tale, but features a threat that’s as weird and unique as it is fearsome. The stakes are high here, with the story opening on a man attempting to stab someone in a New York City alley. Not quite the stakes for Hulk, Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Namor, but soon we learn the threat is some cosmic entity in Times Square!
Mind control powers, heroes fighting heroes, and a giant mouth amount to a bizarre, almost EC Comics-style horror story. The art by Oliveira is great, with good depictions of all the heroes.
Joe Sabino letters each story, giving the book some cohesiveness. Sabino uses all sorts of tricks to amplify the dialogue, like hues in the word balloons to convey mind control, balloons that get wavy at opportune times, and good panel placement throughout.
Marvel’s Black, White & Blood #4 is a fitting finale to the anthology, delivering three smart, stylish horror stories that prove the format still has plenty of life. Between Waid and Fornes’ chilling Doctor Strange opener, Oliveira and Pulido’s thoughtful Blade tale, and LaValle and De Oliveira’s gloriously strange Defenders story, this issue showcases just how flexible Marvel’s horror sandbox can be. It may not be perfectly balanced in tone or impact, but the creativity on display makes this a satisfying and memorable capper to the latest Black, White & Blood legacy.
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