Advance Review — ‘Dead By Daylight: The Hillbilly’ #4 Delivers An Unsatisfying Ending

Let’s start with the ending. Without giving anything away, the conclusion of Dead By Daylight: The Hillbilly #4 leads directly into the video game that it’s based on. While that may not be surprising, it doesn’t really give this limited series much of a satisfactory conclusion.

It also doesn’t really explain why the creative team spent so much time earlier in the series making a hero out of Officer Hollis. Yes, it was a way of introducing Hillbilly as he killed livestock with his trusty hammer in front of a group of crooked cops. But that time could have been spent fleshing out the title character more.

In all likelihood, writer Derek Fridolfs was assigned four issues to tell the computer game character’s backstory, and this is the best he could come up with. It’s too bad because it feels like a waster opportunity at best, or a game of bait and switch at worst.

Artist Dean Kotz has plenty to do in this final issue, as he follows the police chief trying to chase Hillbilly down. (It’s another interesting, if misguided plot point. Is this chief dumb enough to believe he can take out a monster?) Kotz artwork is rough, though that’s appropriate for what he’s illustrating here. There’s more than enough blood and gore in these pages, so realism isn’t necessarily welcome.

That leads us back to Officer Hollis who, through no fault of his own, ends up being a victim here. That makes the ending even more disappointing. A happy ending probably wasn’t possible given the subject matter, but at least give us something satisfying.

Dead by Daylight: The Hillbilly #4 — written by Derek Fridolfs, illustrated by Dean Kotz, colored by Allison Hu, and lettered by AndWorld Design — will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms on July 22 from Titan Comics.