Shan reaches her goal, but that’s just the start of the challenges.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jen Van Meter
Art: Roberto De La Torre
What They Say:
Deep within the underworld, Mirage makes a life-or-death choice…and the life or death in the balance is hers!
The evil men who conspire against Shan Fong-Mirage make their move to destroy everything she has and everything she loves in the physical world. Faced with the obligation to cross the veil back and stop them, Mirage must abandon the spirit of her husband who she came to rescue – or give in to the wish for all she’s ever wanted, to die, and stay with him forever!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With some series, I have to admit that as they go on there’s a certain element to them where I find myself feeling like I’m a bit stupid for not getting it. The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage has certainly hit that path for me in the last issue, though a couple of re-reads along with prior issues helps to bring things together a bit. Out of the box storytelling isn’t a bad thing, but there’s a kind of roundabout approach here that keeps me from getting into it in a really big way. Which is unfortunate, because I definitely like the characters and the way we’ve gotten a fair bit of background along the way to build the characters as we know them, especially with her husband having now been found.
This issue works a bit of background into the storyline as well, showing events at first from five years ago with how things went down with what was summoned into the world, which also ties into what March is doing The backstory here gives us some good time with a young Shan as well, which is definitely interesting to see because we get a good look at how she’s had to view the world by seeing the spirits around all the time and just how strong they are in commanding influence. Watching her going through some therapy about it helps to show some of the progress she can make, which eventually gives her a better life. Parlaying that to ten years ago where we get to see how she and Hwen are together as adults, the way he brought her ways to cope with the spirits even more, is even more fun to watch – especially in how some of them like to watch the two of them together. It’s all very good stuff for further showing who Shan is but also the importance of her bond with Hwen.
The Deadside of things is a far different thing though as events there are still essentially all about being on the run, which works in some ways but just feels more convoluted than it needs to be as Ivros is looking for ways to get his revenge and use those around him through the favor system. Combining that with March and his plans to use what he has in his custody at the moment, which has its own plans to use March himself, it’s all moving towards something but it doesn’t feel cohesive, and unfortunately at times, not all that interesting. We do get some decent bits with Shan as she makes her attempt with the Pale Mistress, but even that doesn’t feel like it’s flowing well in the larger narrative. When we do get her finally rescuing Hwen though, it has some great moments as we know just how far she’s gone to save him after what they went through. But watching them together, which has its good bits, has a surreal feeling as they do what they can to return to the real world while dealing with the challenges of this place. And unfortunately, those challenges just aren’t interesting since it moves so quickly between areas.
In Summary:
With one more issue to go, the Death-Defying Doctor Mirage doesn’t offer up too much in the way of surprises here. We get some good background material on Shan here which is very welcome as it explores the origins of the character in a good way and we get some decent minor bits with Ivros in understanding more of how Deadside works. I just don’t find Deadside compelling, especially with the various environs that we see and the different text style, font and colors used that makes it harder to read. The book does do some good stuff when we get her reunited with Hwen and what obstacles they face, but it all pushes us towards that obvious and expected final challenge about who can really go back when the chips are down.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: December 17th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
