Submerged #4 Review

Writer: Vita Ayala/ Artist: Lisa Sterle / Vault Comics It is the final issue for Team Submerged and it goes out with a bang! Elysia has traveled a long way in this queer and brown contemporary retelling of the Orpheus/Eurydice myth set in the NYC subway and we, the readers are getting a close to her journey. This issue opens to El still looking for her lost brother and coming across not even the final villain in this story: a huge an imposing manifestation of her father on a throne, cold and demanding without an ounce of warmth. Under this seat is where Angel, her darling little brother is imprisoned. To the right of this version of El’s father is one of her mother also seated beside him yet also chained. She looks on and speaks in such a disdained manner perhaps hoping to match her husband and their accusations for their daughter come out in both English and Spanish. El, herself is both chained and weighed down by their words. The imagery here in the art is so brilliantly a great visual cue to the heavy themes we’ve been handled in the writing by Ayala so is a writer in the comics industry that you should be watching for their fine touch on characters with nuance and depth. They really know how to introduce and expand on the backstories of characters that walk the line of being the other and give them rich, personalized narratives.

In regards to who the real villain of this story is… As Morgan pointed out in his review of issue number four on El: “But also, she’s being …