“The Unquiet Grave”
Creative Staff:
Story: Peter Milligan
Art: Inaki Miranda
Colors: Eva De La Cruz
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
What They Say:
Dan’s uncanny near-death experience comes to a shocking and unexpected climax as he’s used as bait to lure Abi McGrath’s astral into the clutches of lascivious magician August Fryne. Meanwhile, in an effort to pay Dan’s medical bills, Dan’s brother does something stupid.
A demonic visitation, a disgusting multicellular organism, a suicide, a funeral and Dan’s trippiest journey yet: inside the body of a dying man. All this and more in the drop-dead gorgeous denouement of OUT OF BODY.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the series comes to a close, at least for its first book, Out of Body has a lot to get done and the pacing is pretty fast because of it. It’s not a surprise overall and Peter Milligan knows how to handle this kind of stuff in a solid way so that it doesn’t feel too rushed or anything. But at the same time, it has final act intensity written all over it. As with past issues, Inaki Miranda turns in some really strong work here with some fantastic pages here that really do find some great little hooks to draw the eye toward. I really like how the astral side to things is being presented and just the way it all creates a mood with the multicolored pieces of it, which are really well-colored by Eva De La Cruz that helps to make it all the more interesting to read.
There’s a lot of chaos going on at Fryne’s house and it really defines the events here for much of it. With Dan captured by him, he’s able to use him to draw in Abi as he wants to siphon her astral self and material into the thing she’s made from hair and dead skin. It’s suitably creepy as you’d expect and both are powerless to stop it. What shakes things up is when Dan’s brother Luke shows up with the recently awakened Adam as they try to rob the place to help pay for Dan’s hospital bills. It’s a quick piece overall with them trying this, but it just gets Fryne to come right out and killed Adam and put Luke into motion to kill himself in front of Dan and Abi. Fryne knows he’s lost control of this situation and will be displeasing his master, but he intends to have a little vengeance.
What shakes things up to make this all the more tragic is that Dan tries to hear Luke’s dying words and goes into his body to try and figure it out. It provides another view for him to realize how wrong he’s been about everything and everyone in his life for some time and it just makes him feel worse. The journey is one worth having though but it also sidetracks to the night that Dan was shot, and we see the truth of the matter – which is almost comical – but the realization that it was Luke’s inactivity that really killed him in the end, and the lingering guilt has been eating at Adam right until his final moments. Moments that Dan can’t quite escape, trapping him forever in the astral plane unless he can find a way out. It’s definitely a Milligan-style ending and one that works well to wrap up the main parts of the storyline while leaving more than enough exposed for more if it does well enough.
In Summary:
Out of Body comes to a quick close overall but it’s been building toward this at a fairly decent clip overall for the last issue or two. Milligan delves into a lot of stuff here but the overriding piece is that Dan really has come to understand how badly he interacted with so many people over the years and has accepted that as a truth. And the meaninglessness of his being attacked only makes it clearer. There’s a lot of directions this can go what with Fryne’s master or just Abi in general, so I’m curious to see if we’ll get another round of this eventually. I suspect Inaki Miranda will be busy with his own projects that are coming up for a while, but I’d love to see this group reteam for this property if they do more. It’s got a great and distinctive look that Miranda delivers on so well. This’ll make for a good read in collected form that will flow even better than it did in the singles.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: November 3rd, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
