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Colder: Toss The Bones #4
Released by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: December 30th, 2015.
Written by: Paul Tobin
Illustrated by: Juan Ferreyra
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New to this series? Check out our reviews of the first three issues here! After last issue's face to face encounter with Nimble Jack, this fourth installment finds Declan and Reece running through the streets of the Hungry World, past pools of blood and past a homeless man who utters the word 'COLDER' as they pass. Not a good omen, not at all.
They run into a small boy that Reece knows for her work, she was his nurse. He tells them that they'll grow colder. Again, not a good omen. The dogs arrive and take the boy, they hurt him, and then they see a small girl pulling a massive concrete block on a chain, squashing the pigeons underneath it that lay in its wake, the same pigeons that utter the word 'COLDER' over and over again. The girl is chained to the block and they try to free her, but Jack shows up, telling them that inside this giant rock is all the insanity that Declan ever cured. He tells them it's delicious and the little girl starts screaming, asking Declan to kill her. Jack runs off, sporting a lobster bib, and the girl gets back to what she was doing. More pigeons die, and more pigeons repeat 'COLDER' over and over again. Declan takes Reece home and decides he's going to find a way to end this.
Jack, on the other hand, heads to a drug store and fills a woman's mouth with pills. She dies, and he eats. It's at this point that Declan realizes what he has to do to beat Jack - he has to starve him. But will it work?
This isn't over yet but it's looking like Paul Tobin is starting to wrap up this latest Colder storyline and he is, to this point at least, doing a damn fine job of it. The series' macabre mix of horror and the darkest humor works really well, it keeps us equal parts intrigued, amused and thoroughly disgusted. Jack is clearly insane and is written as such, and his actions here are as bizarre as they are unexpected. At the same time, the story is smart enough to give us some solid character development as we learn more about the strength in Declan and Reese's relationship that keeps them together even in times as trying as this. It's sweet, actually, and a nice touch of warmth in amidst all the horror. We'll see where it goes from here - the conclusion could go in a multitude of different directions, so the issue ends on a particularly suspenseful note.
Juan Ferreyra's artwork continues to be nothing short of fantastic. He illustrates the human characters perfectly and the inhuman characters just as well. There's a mix of beautiful and grotesque here that goes a long way towards making the series as interesting as it is, and rarely have pigeons taken on such a frightening stance. Nicolas Brondo and Eduardo Ferreyra are credited with ink and color assists, and the three are doing great work here, every page of every issue so far has looked fantastic.
