Writer: Greg Rucka / Artist: Michael Lark / Image Comics
FOREVER BACK…
…not that it matters much this issue for how things end up. I would probably ask for more Lazarus-on-Lazarus action, but the fact that they make us wait for those moments then make them so worth it, I can’t complain. The victories of the coalition led by the Carlyle Family are short lived as an adversary, the Vassalovka Family has unleashed their own Lazarus. And fam…Zmey did not come to play games. What is done supremely well throughout the issue is the foreshadowing and the legend building of Zmey of how terrifying dude is and it does not disappoint.
Before getting there, Rucka and Lark do a masterful job of showing us the plan behind Johanna and Forever trying to play the long game and deceive the rest of the family. The storytelling is done through flashbacks giving us a timeline of how Forever is progressing with her faux regiment all the way up to the showdown with Zmey. Because so much great work has been done to give us real development with so many characters, when they re-appear, we are already fully aware of their motivations and capabilities, that they fit seamlessly back into the story. There’s still plenty of treachery going on in the Carlyle family, but now there is a counter narrative that may signifies not only a possible liberation for Forever, but a weakening of the Family conversely.
Lark, as always, does the damn thing in this issue. The side by side panels of “Number 8” and Forever going through their regiment is just familiar and different enough from each other. But you know where he drops the bars at: The big Lazari pile up. I can’t even say any more about it for fear of spoiling it. But it’s… brutal. Sorry, that’s all I got. It’s fantastic, cop the issue, we’ll talk about it.
Reading Lazarus? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.
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