Advance Review – Secondary Characters Take Center Stage In ‘Exquisite Corpses’ #8
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
Some of the secondary story lines and characters come into focus in this issue, as the series builds toward its climax. The tale remains entertaining – and occasionally gruesome – but still suffers from a glut of characters, which makes it difficult to remember who’s who from month to month.
Overall
8.5/10Being a secondary character in a horror story is usually a tough job. With a lifespan often measured in minutes, these poor souls typically don’t have much of a backstory. They engage in some foolish behavior and are then dispatched with extreme prejudice by the killer.
In the case of Exquisite Corpses, there are a dozen killers terrorizing a small Maine town in a battle royale to give their masters – all members of the 1 percent – control of the United States for the next five years. So while this murders row does battle with itself, the residents of Oak Valley are stuck in the middle, trying to avoid becoming collateral damage.
While the ever-evolving creative team behind this series has occasionally shined the spotlight on those residents, it’s really in this eighth issue where the townspeople not only take center stage but also control of their uncontrollable situation.
EMT Laura Thomas, who we’ve seen since the first chapter, is now poised to take a starring role in the story, as it enters it’s final arc. She has a critical encounter with one of the killers, who was mortally wounded in last issue’s battle.
Writer Pornsak Pichetshote joins series co-creator James Tynion IV and starts to weave the secondary stories together in anticipation of this first season’s climax. The pair also make the tale a little more poignant with some sly societal references.
At one point, a member of the Thirteen – the group of wealth families from each state that actually control the country – threatens the gamemaster after a technical hiccup. “We could walk into the middle of Times Square and disembowel you, and there wouldn’t be a story in the papers.” It’s a take on President Trump’s boast about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and not losing any voters.
Later in the issue, Laura is in disbelief when one of the killers tells her no one will ever learn about the massacre in Oak Valley. She protests that with the internet, people will learn about it instantly. “You think the internet’s made people smarter?” the killer asks.
A number of peripheral characters don’t survive the issue, as depicted by Adam Gorham and Michael Walsh. The pair illustrate a particularly gruesome killing spree replete with axes murders and a plucked-out eye. No one ever said being a secondary character was easy.
As entertaining as this issue is, it only goes to cement the series’ main structural issue: there are too many characters to keep track of. A dozen killers, their overlords, the townsfolk. It’s good that the body count is so high. Maybe by the end, we’ll remember the survivors’ names – assuming there are any.
Exquisite Corpses #8 will be available in comic book shops and on digital platforms Wednesday from Image Comics.
