Bone Parish: Volume Three

The last volume – or is it just the season one finale? – of the Bone Parish saga. And up to the final issue I was wondering how they were going to manage to wrap everything up in the few pages remaining. Well, much to my surprise Cullen Bunn managed to pull it off. It’s a quick ending, and feels a bit rushed, but it’s satisfactory and does manage to tie up most of the loose ends while holding out the promise of the story continuing. Colour me impressed. I didn’t think it was going to work.

There were no big twists or revelations, while the action seemed bloodier than usual even though the regular gang violence was toned down and the mutants created by the bad batch of Ash weren’t back. I was getting used to Jonas Scharf’s art, and while he has a real weak spot for faces, especially in profiles that he tends to just repeat, he does some good action scenes here, including a couple of nice fights and one great explosion drawing.

So that’s a wrap, with most of the Winters family now deceased and bottled up. But what might be going on in the land of the dead is left a little vague. Is there a voodoo king of the underworld, or is it all just hallucinations? Maybe if the series is continued things like this will be explained, but I’m fine if they just leave it the way they did. Solid work all around.

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Batman: Damned

Batman: Damned is a sequel of sorts to the Joker comic put out by the same writer and artist ten years earlier but it was also the first comic to be published under the imprint of DC’s Black Label, which was targeted at mature audiences. The first printing of Damned even included a picture of a nude Bruce Wayne with his dick hanging out, and there are few things as adult as Batman’s dick. So . . . it was something old and something new. But what I really found it to be was overblown and confusing.

The blame, in my opinion, falls on Brian Azzarello. I really didn’t like the writing on any level. Most of it is woefully ungrammatical, no matter who is speaking. The Enchantress I could give a pass too since she’s a demon zombie witch or something so I figure she can say “I be fate written. Die cast. Why you no remember?” But why are Batman’s “diaries” full of stuff like “what don’ kill us eats us alive”? Why are the rapper’s rhymes so weak? Why does the homeless guy say things like “seen him with my own too [sic] eyes”? Why would the mandarin Waynes say things like “Don’t be here when I do get back”? Were these typos? In a prestige publication like this? Or did they have some meaning I was missing? Hell, I even hated the lettering. This was all terrible.

Then there was the plot, which was another take on the idea of the journey of the soul after death. The aim was to do a sort of horror comic, but I was too confused to find any of it very scary or unnerving. So as usual it just turned out dark. There were cameos from figures I didn’t know well (John Constantine, the Spectre) or barely at all (the Enchantress). And there’s an uncomfortable appearance by Harley Quinn, who nearly rapes Batman at one point because . . . she hates him. I didn’t need any of this. But then Swamp Thing shows up and I always like to see Swampy so that was a plus.

It looks fantastic. Lee Bermejo’s art is on point with the noir-horror vibe throughout, making me almost wish DC had done the book as one of those comics without words. I might have followed the story just as well. I’ve really liked some of Azzarello’s stuff, but this struck me as a poorly developed idea that tried to make up for its deficiencies with lots of heavy breathing and broken English. And that’s a shame because I did have the sense it could have been something great.

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