Advance Review — ‘Blood & Thunder’ #9 Is A Bloodbath From Start To Finish
by Tom Smithyman
Most ongoing comic book series are told in arcs — usually four or five-issue segments that fill readers in on a certain aspect of a tale. Like the individual issues themselves, these arcs have their own natural ebb and flow.
We’ve hit the point in Blood & Thunder’s arc where the vast majority of this issue is taken up by a big battle. Two actually, though one is unfortunately largely unseen. Plotting out a big battle and then presenting it to readers can be a difficult storytelling challenge. Have you devoted enough time to show the gravity of the fight? How much is too much?
Finding that alchemy can be difficult, and this creative team seems doesn’t seem to have found the right formula. There’s a lot of fighting — gore really, though it’s not terribly bloody. But there is page after page of decapitation, eye popping, shooting, and macing to the point where it gets old quickly. To make matters worse, E.J. Su‘s normally strong visuals suffer here. There doesn’t seem to be as much fidelity in his work in this issue — as if we were watching a movie that wasn’t in high definition. These battles can take a lot out of an artist, and this one takes its toll on Su.
Benito Cereno’s script is fine, for a battle issue. There are plenty of quips in between bloodlettings. And, after several issues, we finally understand why bounty hunter Blood has traveled to this remote planet. But for the third issue in a row, the chapter ends in a bizarre way. It’s not a cliffhanger per se. Rather, it just sort of stops.
Whole story arcs are difficult to plan, but individual issues shouldn’t have these kinds of … issues.
Blood & Thunder #9 will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms Wednesday from Image Comics.
Overview
This series continues its bizarre habit of ending issues in what feels like an unplanned way. It’s almost as if the creative team ran out of pages and didn’t want to redo their work. If you’re into issues about big battle, this one has a lot of killing, though the illustrations aren’t as strong as they have been.
