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Goddamned, The #5

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    Ian Jane
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  • Goddamned, The #5



    Goddamned, The #5
    Released by: Image Comics
    Released on: November 23rd, 2016.
    Written by: Jason Latour
    Illustrated by: R.M. Guera
    Purchase From Amazon

    It's been a whole five months since Latour and Guera's tale of Old Testament insanity hit comic book racks around the world, but hey, better late than never! This fifth issue, not surprisingly, picks up where the fourth left off. A scripture verse from Genesis 6:7 serves as a foreshadowing of what's to come…

    With Cain's help, Aga has found her son Lodo and while Cain and the Ravagers pit bone against iron respectively in a bloody bout of hand to hand combat. The man who invented murder lays waste to scores of combatants and then goes one on one with a literal giant. It's going alright for Cain until a few others join in -Noah and his sons - and go at him with axes. It wasn't that long ago that this would have been exactly what he wanted - a quick death - but now he's got a reason to keep going, at least for a while.

    When the hordes of the damned start wreaking havoc with the arc, Noah retreats from the battlefield leaving the giant to finish things. Meanwhile the Bone Boys, those kids who were tormenting Lodo, debate whether or not to fight for the camp or steal the meat wagon and make a run for it. The argument is short lived, broken apart quite literally when Noah comes charging through on his way to get to the ark.

    Cain and the giant, Nephilim, are still going at it. The giant eats his arm but Cain persists, he has to stop Noah. Nephilim insists that they're going to finish this, unaware that, as Cain puts it, he's already dead. Cain makes his way through the chaos and the carnage, curses God, and then he comes face to face with Noah. The two men talk, they survey the destruction that they've each had a hand in bringing about. They talk, and then they fight and from there things get very dark indeed.

    This fifth issue wraps up the 'Before The Flood' storyline that makes up the first installment of the series (the next arc, 'The Virgin Brides,' will be out in 2017) in a genuinely unexpected way. Obviously we don't want to spoil the ending but this one hits like a kick in the balls. Aaron's writing is gritty, it's mean, it's angry and it's darkly poetic but at the same time, as earthy as it all is and as often as it deals in blasphemy, there's a lot of food for thought here. The way that Cain is written, his words and his actions, they make sense given the context of his origin and his life experiences. The rest of the characters are interesting as well, particularly Noah who is depicted here not as a savior or a holy man but as a narcissistic hypocrite. It makes sense that he and Cain would come to blows. Light reading this is not and The Goddamned is hardly a comic for the faint of heart or the easily offended but this is seriously heady stuff, it pulls you in and it keeps you there, taking Biblical stories and giving them a truly unique spin.

    R.M. Guera's art has been simultaneously gorgeous and grotesque from the first page of the first issue and this fifth chapter is just as amazing looking as the four that came before it. There's so much detail put into every panel that you really want to take your time with it and pour over every page to properly take it all in. The use of color is also impressive, with plenty of earth tones used to create the dirty, filthy world that is this comic's setting and some splashy bright reds used throughout to give it contrast.

    Really solid stuff, a remarkable artistic achievement - the next arc can't come fast enough.






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