Hunting monsters can sometimes turn you into one.
Creative Staff:
Story: Kelly Sue DeConnick & Chris Sebela
Artwork: Geraldo Borges & Andy Owens
What They Say:
While Doctor October sends her demonic enforcers to attack Elisa and her friends, the White City Butcher captures Tommy and Sloane. Ghost will have to choose between uncovering the secrets of her past and protecting everyone’s future! Interdimensional forces turn Chicago into a war zone in the first arc’s clashing conclusion!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Ghost had a bit of fun in its second issue by focusing on Beleth and the way that Elisa was using him to achieve her goals, while he used her as well towards his of getting a new body. The background information started to come in on how the Mayor had run things, the nature of the this particular world and the movements and intrigue of what Doctor October is up to. The book as a whole was decent, especially since it focused moreso on Elisa and Beleth together and there was a sort of buddy cop kind of routine going on that was enjoyable to watch. The downside is that the decent sized supporting cast didn’t get much time and when they appear in this issue, they’re still not all that memorable beyond their particular archetypes. And with the threats arrayed against them, you really do want to know more about them so that you can get invested in them being in danger.
With Elisa having uncovered a few useful clues towards her past here and getting involved in what Barrows has become, that bleeds easily into this issue as the two of them have it out in a fairly public way that seemingly nobody sees since it’s a quiet street where nobody looks outside. That said, the fight between the two is decent and we see how Beleth is kind of freaking out about everything in general since he wants to get out of dodge to start over again. With his path having been used by the Mayor for so long no longer tenable, a fresh start certainly makes sense. And thankfully, Elisa does understand that and continually renegotiates the deal that the two have in order to try and keep it to her advantage since she knows that Beleth will end up betraying her in the end. He is an otherworldly demon after all.
While she deals with this, Doctor October is putting her own plans further into motion as we see the previously mentioned supporting cast getting thrown into the danger zone as she’s got her varied minions out there attempting to eliminate them. This has a decent struggle with Caroline and Vaughn as they’re outside and on the run and it actually has a bit of tension to it since Elisa goes to help the other pair back at the apartment and Beleth manages to ingratiate himself with the demon there in order to try and save Caroline and Vaughn. With so much of his existence staked on Elisa’s happiness with his results, he actually has a bit of fun with it in a way that works nicely. It’s more interesting than the butcher that the other pair has to deal with, which Elisa swoops in to save the day with. In a way, we get a few loose ends tied up here with this issue and that helps to bring a little closure to things while opening it up to the next phase, particularly since Elisa sees a lot of potential in taking over what Beleth has left behind, a very smart and interesting move.
In Summary:
With artwork by new artist Geraldo Borges, which works rather well for me here, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Chris Sebela have basically give us the opening chapter with a bit of the prologue here for the larger story. We’ve had a slightly awkward re-introduction of the Ghost property and the kind of world she’s in and she’s made some small bit of progress here, some of it involving her goal of returning the demons to their realm and some of it involving understanding more of her own past. These pieces work well to establish the basics and in reading the three issues as a whole it does flow a bit better than every couple of months, which definitely takes it down a notch. Elisa continues to be a character filled with so much potential and we’re just now starting to get this new container of a character fleshed out. Hopefully we get some exploratory time with her in the next few issues along with some larger story elements, but also time to just get to know the characters and who they really are.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: April 16th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
