COVER OF DARKNESS #4 – Review

COVER OF DARKNESS #4, from Source Point Press on April 20th, 2022, spins a tale of the Gill Man as he escapes rejection from his people, only to find love and death among the drylanders.

The Details

• Written By: George Michail, Chris Cam
• Art By: M.J. Hiblen
• Colors By: M.J. Hiblen
• Letters By: Nikki Powers
• Cover Art By: M.J. Hiblen
• Cover Price: $1.99 (digital)
• Release Date: April 20, 2022

Was It Good?

COVER OF DARKNESS #4 is an odd issue. We were fairly high on the direction the arc was taking in issues #2 and #3 with the unique origins of classic monsters, presumably moving towards some colossal conflict. Here, the unique origin is dropped in favor of a bizarre romance that borrows HEAVILY from The Shape of Water (2017). Readers also get scenes related to the shapeshifting brothers and their families that transition badly. In short, the structure and flow of the comic are a mess.

It’s not clear what happened here. Three or four separate plots were mashed together in random order with no flow. Some panels focus on the story of the month, the Gill Man, as his lineage began via a forbidden love affair between a human and mermaid. That’s all fine and dandy, but then the story quickly transitions to a too-hard-to-believe love story between the Gill Man and a human woman after an act of kindness. The Shape of Water (2017) managed to pull off a similar romance but only with masterful scriptwriting and a heck of a lot of setup to make it work. Here, you get the first meeting to romance in two steps, and it doesn’t fly at all.

In between the Gill Man romance story, we get snippets of Dracula’s protege struggling with bloodlust, Janus and Jericho coming to terms with their respective situations in separate threads, a tone-deaf comedy thread involving Poseidon, and the thread concerning a mother’s desperate move to rescue her daughter from a pack of werewolves. It’s too much, too disorganized, and too clunky.

The writing isn’t great, but the art is at least on par with the rest of the series. Hiblen at least tries to give readers something interesting to see, even if the jumps from one panel to the next don’t make any narrative sense. The Gill Man design is sufficiently horrifying, the one monster fight is unique, and the last-panel shock moment is a gut punch.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.

What’s It About?

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

To see what other monster origins have cropped up, first read our COVER OF DARKNESS #3 review.

We start with a flashback to 500 years ago when a mermaid and a human began a love affair resulting in a strange mutant child. When Poseidon receives word of the child he cast it out of Atlantis as an abomination.

As the child grows into an adult Gill Man, we see him save a boy from drowning. The boy’s adult sister first thinks the Gill Man is attacking, but she quickly feels gratitude and relief (and more) when she learns the Gill Man is only trying to help.

Meanwhile, Jericho tries to make the most of a bad situation indentured to the goblin running the circus. Janus receives a stranger’s help in the forest. A mother seeks help and direction to save her kidnapped daughter from a pack of werewolves. And Dracula’s ward tries to establish a friendly relationship with a human boy, only to find the bloodlust is too strong.

We conclude the issue with Poseidon telling everyone about his day, a failed boar hunt, and the worst sex interruption in history.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.

As an Amazon Associate, we earn revenue from qualifying purchases to help fund this site. Links to Blu-Rays, DVDs, Books, Movies, and more contained in this article are affiliate links. Please consider purchasing if you find something interesting, and thank you for your support.