The dark truth revealed.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Cornell
Art: Tony Parker
What They Say:
It’s the last leg of Motherfather’s world tour, and all hell is about to break loose . . . literally! Someone’s been in league with Lucifer all along—but who? Find out in the best seats in the house, courtesy of Paul Cornell (Wolverine, Action Comics) and Tony Parker (Mass Effect: Foundation)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This Damned Band faltered a bit for me the last time around with what it wanted to do as it came across as somewhat unfocused and without the strong narrative we had before. It was an important issue to set things in place for the final two installments, but just the way it went about things didn’t really draw me into it in a big way unfortunately. With this penultimate issue of the series, however, everything is firing on all of its crazy cylinders as we barrel towards the culmination of events. And it’s an issue that reminds me once again that as good as it is on a monthly basis it’ll be one that’ll be a much stronger single collection read down the line.
With the band heading to their last gig of the tour at the stadium in Texas, everything has an odd feeling to it as the bus makes its way there. With Malcolm having died and that having been used to boost the band’s occult status, there’s just a dark vibe about it all even as some of them continue on as normal – or disconnected as normal. You have to feel for Justin a bit as he’s trying to sift through the fog of his existence to figure out what’s going on but is unable to. The really interesting character here once again is that of Alice as she’s really taking control of not just her destiny but helping others. Figuring out that things have been going on with the disappearing groupies, though not what has gone on, reaffirms her as the level headed one here. Her lashing out with Alex is pretty nicely done and seeing her stand up after being so repeatedly beaten down is welcome. Between her mothering of the other groupies and wives and the way she can do a pretty neat tell-all someday, she’s the one whose story you want to follow into the decades to come – if there are decades to come.
As it shifts gears to prepping for the concert, we get to see that dark things are definitely afoot. I really like the way that we see how the sacrifices are gathered for it, black hoods and all, and that there is a form of mind control at work here with the kind of control in place over the roadies that perform the capture. This also plays well to seeing the kind of darkness that’s in the audience as the concert gets underway and it visibly unnerves Justin. He continues to come across decently if confused, but with Nazi and Confederate flags out there among others and pockets of real violence, his attempt to put an end to it all is certainly welcome. But this is where we get the reveal of the true darkness behind it all, even if it’s still unclear just how much is reality and how much is hallucination and drugs. I love the ambiguity to it, or at least the ambiguity I get from it, because it makes the upcoming finale all the more anticipated to see if it’s made as clear as it can be or if we’ll just get teased that uncertainty some more.
In Summary:
This Damned Band continues to be an engaging read and connects better for me this time around as it feels more focused on what it is it wants to do. I love the gallows humor of sorts that we get early on from the manager as even he realizes the surreal nature of it but also that it has to be done. For me, Alice continues to be the real star of the book with what she’s doing in navigating it all and it clicks very well for me. With the reveal at the end I’m really curious to see how it unfolds and plays out. Cornell again captures the nature of the cast really well with what he does with their voices and actions. That’s only topped by the expressiveness that Parker brings to the artwork here with the cast. Some of Justin’s expressions are just priceless to watch as he moves in a befuddled way through his own life. Similarly, getting what we do from Alice with both expression and overall body design just makes her far more compelling because it has some really great material behind it. Solid stuff all around.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 2nd, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
