Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Fernando Blanco
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr. with John Rauch
Editor: Chris Conroy

Well, that was one hell of a ride. I would say corny puns aside, but the ending of this mini-series could not be cornier. But what more could you expect from a book about a half cyborg man descending into Hell to rescue his one true love.

I thought that this was a beautiful way to cap off the end of the series and gave me exactly what I expected from the premise. It was a little “happily-ever-after” but the drama was played in such a way that I was anxiously hoping it would be for most of the comic’s main story. I felt like there were some problems with the “epilogues” to the main story, though. One of them seemed to be setting up some future material, which I get needs to be done, but it really took away from the emotional victory we had just witnessed. The second epilogue, however, would have probably been fine if it was the only epilogue. It seemed to try to ground the more emotional/fairy tale ending with the real nitty gritty victories of having a successful relationship. I think the idea is good but the execution didn’t leave me with quite the same butterflies as the earlier action.

Fernando Blanco has done an excellent job with this series with some mesmerizing panel layouts. I thought the double page spreads here were especially excellent. He had huge shoes to fill when coming in for Aco, who did the art on the original series, and he did admirably. I have to admit, I thought the coloring felt a little phoned in and didn’t blow me away, but overall, this was a pleasant book to look at.

 

4 happy endings out of 5.