The tragedy concludes
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Allor
Art: Paul Tucker
Letterer: Paul Allor
What They Say:
El finds himself back where he started. But he’s changed too much to simply accept this. After discovering what a beautiful thing life can be, EL will not let himself slide back to the Hell his life once was. Mateo offers him a way out, but it comes with an extraordinary cost. And so, EL must at last decide just how much he’s willing to pay for his escape.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The series for Hollow Heart is one that I really do end up feeling mixed on installment to installment and the finale is no exception. I do like what Paul Allor is doing with the main story of El and Mateo, but the lack of narration and parables that we’ve had before is definitely noticeable here. That was a strong piece for me last time but this time it just felt like we needed more of the main story to move forward. Paul Tucker’s artwork feels quite right for this project as we get some great expressions out of El for and some really neat layouts in general. That combined with the color design and just the way the cast connect makes it an easy read to go through.
With the finale, it’s definitely more tragedy steeped in what’s come before. El is essentially trapped in his mind for most of it with Mateo having told him to go in deeper and deeper in order to stay away from those that want to use and weaponize him. Some of this unfolds with him and Mateo together in the bedroom together spending what seems like an eternity together and you feel for them even though it’s not reality. We see a little bit of the other side of it as well with all the flames as El tries to understand what’s going on here and how he really figures into all of it.
The reality is that such a public incident is causing a lot of problems and with everyone back at the facility now, they do manage to come to a kind of agreement of sorts, though it’s not something that will work out for El. He’s doing his best to hide away further and further but others think they can use him now that Mateo has gone and shown just how far all of this can go. There’s a lot of back and forth on it but it just highlights how awkward the series is in establishing the reality of what this entire project is about. It’s almost like they’re dancing around it rather than spelling it out explicitly because it never felt like it was really and truly established.
In Summary:
Hollow Heart had a lot of interesting things to say along the way but as a whole I’m admittedly not sure what it is that it wants to get across. We get the tragic kind of ending here that works and I’m sure they could do more if they wanted to. Allor’s script had a lot going for it in the individual issues with the narration and what it was trying to say there but at the end I’m not sure what the larger point was. Tucker’s artwork has been solid throughout and the kind of surreal feeling that we get with El definitely worked in the book’s favor.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: August 18th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
