Death or Glory #11 Review

Writer: Rick Remender / Artist: Bengal / Image

Death or Glory #1 debuted a little over two years ago and there’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind that the story has aged incredibly well from both a narrative perspective and the fact that it’s premise continues to resonate. The daughter of an uninsured man does everything she humanly can to make sure that her father gets the medical attention that he needs, literally everything else be damned. Glory’s saga through the border, her entire arc comes to its final end with the series finale, and I honestly do think that Remender and Bengal deliver the goods in every sense of the phrase.

Death or Glory #11 carries the momentum of the previous issue pretty deftly, and the 32-page comic hurtles down the breakneck speed like it always has. Glory’s internal narration of the events and the sparse dialog that presents itself in the final act of the story is every bit as sharp and poignant as all of the moments leading up to it. The titular death or glory scenario has reached its final form, and it is a pleasure to watch as the adrenaline-fueled action explodes on the page. Bengal’s art gives these characters the final send off they truly deserve, and the artistry of the pages is every bit as cinematic as the movie posters the cover riffs on. But we get to appreciate the moment to moment more in comics. we get to linger on the emotional beats, the onomatopoeia of the gunshots and car engine revving. It is made clear from the get that this is indeed the end of the story, but if nothing else, it is a truly spectacular ending.

Remender’s writing is ripe with sentimentality and self-reflection. As the final action sequences fades and I close the pages of the last Death or Glory comic I’ll read (at least for the foreseeable future), I feel… content. I feel satisfied like a good homecooked meal. I feel like the adventure and the story all amounted to something and that I’m glad I got to be along for the ride and in the end isn’t that what we hope out of every comic? Isn’t it rare that we get an ending fitting of the adventure that it took to get there? Death or Glory is a fitting tale for our times and one that I’ll gladly recommend time and time again, so if you’ve been along in the passenger seat with Glory since 2018, you definitely owe it to yourself to see it through. And if you’re new… well, start at the beginning and get ready for a wild ride.

9.3 “Blazes” out of 10

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