BROKEN GARGOYLES: SIN AND VIRTUE #3 – Review

In BROKEN GARGOYLES: SIN AND VIRTUE #3, available from Source Point Press on August 25th, 2021, Julia’s farm is about to be obliterated while the Marshal finally catches up to her bounty in the middle of a gunfight.

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The Details

• Written By: Bob Salley, Christina Blanch
• Art By: Stan Yak, Ken Perry
• Colors By: Robert Nugent
• Letters By: Justin Birch
• Cover Art By: Francesco Francavilla
• Cover Price: $2.99
• Release Date: August 25, 2021

Was It Good?

It’s the end of the story… for now.

When one door closes, another opens, and that’s the feeling you get with this issue. We get a resolution on so many of the main plot points that you can’t help feel a sense of finality around several of the characters, particularly the Marshal and Julia in their distinctly separate threads.

Julia’s dilemma with her farm about to be destroyed is exciting and as tense a conclusion as you could hope for. Two giant machines battling it out to either destroy or save a farmhouse sounds nonsensical in its description, but it completely works in execution. Layer on a hostage situation and VERY final end to the battle, and you have a finale to the conflict that’s unforgettable.

The Marshal’s hunt for Manco and the crew reaches a completely separate and bloody climax that I enjoyed quite a lot. There’s a sorrowful moment involving USM6 that winds up planting a seed for future chapters with a world of possibilities.

And that’s what makes this series so interesting. The chapter closes, but enough seeds are planted to tell a whole host of stories going forward. As much as this story was concluded in a satisfying way, this endpoint could be summed up in the word ‘potential’.

Yak and Perry’s art is good enough to get the job done. Their sketchy style grounds the characters and the settings to project an early-century feel, making this book more of a Western than a steampunk fable. That said, some of the panels are a little too loose and sketchy and they lose the detail of the characters’ anatomies and the actions they’re taking. There were a few panels where it was hard to tell what was going on. A sketchy aesthetic is fine, but not when you can’t decipher the panel.

In all, this is a solid entry in the series that brings the current chapter to a close while opening a door to a small infinity of possibilities for what comes next.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]

We begin with the showdown about to begin at Julia’s farm. A massive bulldozer mech is moving toward her home and it appears not much is going to stop it from destroying everything in its path. Suddenly Larry arrives in his own mech and knocks the bulldozer for a loop.

Cut to Manco and the Marshal pinned down in the middle of a gunfight. The Marshal is badly wounded. USM6 takes down one of the attackers but is quickly damaged by a hail of bullets. The Marshal directs Manco to get her bag containing the reprogramming punchcards.

Back at the farm, the giant machines continue their fight until Larry gets in a killing blow. The bulldozer is down, but the driver is far from done when he drops down and takes Kat hostage.

Back to the gunfight. Manco manages to grab the bag, and Marshal digs out the card that will reprogram USM6 into a lethal defender. Manco succeeds, and USM6 kills the remaining shooters while Manco does his best to stop the Marshal’s bleeding.

We conclude the issue with a promise from Manco, Doug putting a very swift end to the hostage situation, and USM6 sharing his programming with dire consequences.

Final Thoughts

BROKEN GARGOYLES: SIN AND VIRTUE #3 is a satisfying, yet open-ended, conclusion to the current conflict. Some characters survive, others do not, and you can see seeds planted that could spell trouble for the squad in the very near future. The art is decent, and the resolution to each major thread is worth the read.

Score: 8/10

★★★★★★★★

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