We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 is published by BOOM! Studios. It comes from the creative team of writer Al Ewing, artist Simone Di Meo, coloring assists from Mariasara Miotti, and lettering by AndWorld Design. The story begins with several timelines being shown simultaneously. A young Georges witnesses a god for the first time. Alice floats, lifelessly, through space after being shot by Richter. Georges, older now, learns of the destruction of his mother’s ship and her ensuing death.
Finally, back in the present, Georges resolves himself for a final mission. He leaves the ship in his engineer’s hands and goes into space to retrieve Alice’s body. Richter lines up a shot, but hesitates, wanting to see Georges’ face when she kills him. He counts on that as he grabs onto Alice’s corpse, even as the remaining crew of his ship look on. But Georges has one final trick up his sleeve that no one is prepared for, and when all is said and done nothing will be the same.
With We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 I can safely say that no other comic issue has stressed me out this much. The tension that Ewing packs into every panel is damn near palpable. From the strange, yet perfectly fitting opening to Georges’ suicide-mission spacewalk. Each page had me gripped and on the edge of my seat. Even with the fascinating revelation that the crew had found a living god, I was still so enthralled with the interpersonal drama that I completely forgot. If the ability to write such good tension between characters that the reader forgets the living titan that they wage space battles over isn’t high praise, then I don’t know what is.
The art from Di Meo and assists from Motti maintain their consistent standard of excellence. The way that they are able to beautifully portray moments of pristine stillness and tense action is phenomenal. At times, these two emotions can be seen and felt even on the same page in separate panels. As a result, there are whole pages of characters floating through space while others aim guns at them. And somehow they are never stale or boring, but rather impressively tense. The otherworldly color palettes keep everything grounded in the sci-fi setting and are a joy to look at. The letters from AndWorld Design continue to fit perfectly into every page. Clean, easy to read, and never cluttering the panels or dragging attention away from the art.
I feel like every time I review an issue of this series I have to rein myself in from just babbling about how impressed I am. We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 is no different. Somehow, Ewing takes a character going on a spacewalk to retrieve a corpse and makes a full issue out of it. But what is truly incredible is that it is a gripping thriller of an issue that may be my favorite one of the series yet. This is hard sci-fi at its finest and everyone should be reading this series.
We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 is available wherever comics are sold.
We Only Find Them When They're Dead #4
TL;DR
I feel like every time I review an issue of this series I have to rein myself in from just babbling about how impressed I am. We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 is no different.
