The Curse of Brimstone #8 – Justin Jordan, Writer; Eduardo Pansica, Penciller; Julio Ferreira, Inker; Rain Beredo, Colorist
Ray – 7/10
Ray: Justin Jordan’s superhero horror series takes a major turn this issue, as Brimstone himself moves towards the dark side and we might find ourselves with a new protagonist. When we last left off, Joe and Annie came to yet another town that had fallen prey to the Salesman. This disturbing village had people willingly sacrificing their limbs to appease the most powerful threat Brimstone has faced yet – La Bel Dame Sans Merci. This woman has a seeming control over the earth itself, making things rot around her. She has an army of loyal followers, and she infects them with a sort of rot that turns them into mutated human-plant hybrids – including Annie, whose arm gets infected early in the story and spends most of the issue fighting off the transformation. Despite his fears of losing control, Joe has no choice but to turn into Brimstone and attempt to burn out the villain and her army of misshapen zombies.
From the start of this series, the tug-of-war between Joe and Brimstone has been at the fore. We’ve seen this kind of plot before, with characters like Phoenix and Venom, but Jordan does an effective job of showing the level of power Brimstone contains when unleashed. Problem is, there’s way too much monologuing on the part of the villain, and her speeches take up much of the issue as Brimstone torches zombies and Annie begs him to stop. The visuals are nice and creepy, but overall the story is very thin. By the end of the issue, Joe has surrendered to the villain and agreed to serve the Salesman to protect Annie and free her from the curse – which means we might be seeing Annie take over as the new protagonist as she tries to find and free her brother. This series has been effective at telling creepy horror stories, but the overarching mythology isn’t quite coming together yet.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
