Creative Staff:
Story: Fred Van Lente
Art: Vincenzo Carratu
Colors: Kike J. Diaz
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
It all comes to do this! Our motley band of heroes from across space and time has made a final stand in an isolated monastery high in the Himalayan mountains against the zombie plague sweeping the multiverse…as the secret hand behind the zombie plague at last reveals itself! But is it too late the worlds of Dynamite from an unstoppable wave of undead?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The main Dienamite series draws to a close and while I had hoped for closure it’s just going to shift gears into Dienamite Lives next. Fred Van Lente has rolled with the changes of the series fairly well but it’s stuck mostly just to action sequences separate from anything else. That changes here as the bigger pieces are revealed which helps to set up what’s next. The artwork on the book continue to be really solid with a good blending of very different characters into a world that feels cohesive while also applying different looks to some of them so that it’s not just the same old thing again and again.
The face-off at the monastery has a lot going on, such as how Sonja is trying to end her bond with the Ernie pin thing but struggling with how much they really are bonded. At the same time, it’s telling her to realize that Cannon is compromised with a bite from the undead and it’s only a matter of time. It’s amusing to watch this unfold because she doesn’t believe it at first and Peter is also doing his best to fight against it, something his skillset might actually give him the opportunity to do. That’s all playing out while the carnage goes on around them and as Sonja looks to find a way to put an end to all of this before things get worse. Naturally,things do get worse first.
This mostly comes in that the leader of the monastery has been in hiding all this time from Lady Hel herself, who has now descended since so much has become known and happening in open view. With Vampirella trying to get a handle on it all, it’s a bit more talky-talky than it should be considering what’s going on but we see how Sonja is being transformed by the energy of the pin and their bond that makes her an ideal servant for Hel. Everything builds up to a dark place that’s fun enough to watch in the abstract but it still lacks the kind of grounding that it needs to feel right. Especially since this was billed as a finale of sorts, not the launching point of the next round of things. I do like seeing how things go for Sonja hee and the group that Vampirella seems to be leaning against to work with now.
In Summary:
I went into this issue thinking it was the last of the run and expecting a conclusion, so discovering that it’s leading to another series or event book doesn’t exactly wow me. This is a project that just needs to have a fork put in it because it’s done. The concept in general isn’t bad but the launch execution and opening issues were very rough and didn’t do anything to really set the stage well. It’s gotten a bit more fun since then as it just works the action and creativity from there but there’s not much in the way of payoff beyond that. I’m still game to see where it’s going to go but it really needs to start feeling a bit more weighty and meaningful in order to connect more.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 17th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99