American Carnage #3 Review

Writer: Bryan Hill / Artist: Leandro Fernandez / DC Comics For the third time, I mentally braced myself when opening the latest issue of American Carnage. It bares repeating that this is a difficult book. It is violent and visceral and unrelenting in its depiction of hate. Hill does not pull any punches. Fernandez’s artwork is graphic as all hell. And yet, I find myself enthralled by Richard Wright’s descent into the depths of white supremacy and thinking “this series just keeps getting better.” American Carnage #3 picks up nearly immediately after the end of #2. Richard (still referred to “affectionately” as Judo) is dragged out to a back alley where a bunch of horrible white men are beating up a black man who is bound and gag, and they expect Richard to join in on the pile up. Everything just sort of escalates from there, but while that is happening in the now, we also get some insight to the “Before” of Richard’s life. Up until this point, Agent Wright had been a passive agent. He got thrust into an undercover job, thrust into the backyard party of a white supremacist, thrust into a back alley beatdown. Here, we see Agent Wright’s active decision to apply to undercover assignments, and Hill masterfully paints the psychology and socioeconomic background of Wright in plain and direct dialog. In a conversation about subterfuge and lost identity, Wright is frank about his biracial background and what it took for him to survive in St. Louis. He shines a bright light on how Wri…