In THE LIVING CORPSE: RELICS #4, available from American Mythology on October 27th, 2021, John Romero awakes in an insane asylum, confronted with the horrible delusions he’s manufactured to escape the reality that he’s killed his family.
The Details
- Written By: Ken Haeser
- Art By: Ken Haeser, Buz Hasson
- Colors By: Blair Smith
- Letters By: Ken Haeser
- Cover Art By: Ken Haeser, Blair Smith
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: October 27, 2021
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Was It Good?
File this one under the “you’ll question what’s real and what isn’t” category of storytelling, and it’s a nice little change of pace for the series. To be fair, a “Kung-Fu Living Corpse fight” is a very high bar to live up to, so this issue definitely feels cooler in energy and pacing compared to issue #3. However, it’s an excellent entry in the arc.
We’re still following the title in two seemingly unrelated threads. In the first, Romero is at odds with Osirus over his unwillingness to collaborate on taking down Asteroth. In the second, Lilith is held captive by the Nosferatu to become the unwilling mother to the next generation of vampires. Lilith’s journey gets much less time in this issue but it ends on a banger of a high note that we’ll unveil slightly in the next section.
Haeser does a great job playing with Romero’s sanity as he wakes up in an asylum, questioning everything he knows (or thought he knew). The back and forth between Romero and Dr. Asari pushes Romer’s doubt with the doctor’s abject certainty about the reality of Romero’s past. It’s an uncomfortable yet effective display of gaslighting, and Haeser nails it.
The art is consistently good in this series for capturing the Living Corpse style we’ve come to know and love, but a little extra kudos go to Blair Smith in this issue. The coloring used throughout Romero’s stay at the asylum has a brushed – almost watercolor – application that keeps the art consistent with the series yet off somehow. You get the feeling you’re reading the same story but the narrative has changed, and it’s super effective. Again, kudos to Smith for a gamble that pays off.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Before you get lost in Romero’s insanity, read our THE LIVING CORPSE: RELICS #3 review to get caught up.
We begin with a pair of doctors discussing the patients on their rounds in an asylum, one doctor points out the patients in the Z Wing are considered especially deranged and very dangerous. They pause at the door of one such patient, John Romero, who was captured after killing his ex-wife, her boyfriend, and their son before cannibalizing them. Romero justifies it all by claiming he was a zombie at the time.
We soon meet John Romero in his first interview with Dr. Ansari, a new arrival to the asylum who wants to try a more aggressive regiment of therapy with Romero. Dr. Ansari is unrepentant in pushing John to accept the zombie story is a delusion to cover the guilt of his murders.
Through several, private, one-on-one sessions, Dr. Ansari pushes John to remember a dream about his son and how John remembers “dying”. With each session, the delusions become more clear, more distinct, more detailed. Eventually, Romero starts to break as he recalls a distinct fact about the day he supposedly died saving his son, a fact that changes everything he knows about his delusion of being a Living Corpse.
Meanwhile, Lilith attempts to escape the legion of amorous Nosferatu through the sewers. Orick catches up to her to bring her back with the explanation that not all the Nosferatu have had their “turn” with her. We conclude the issue with Romero realizing everything he knew was a lie and Lilith bumping into a very large friend (or possble enemy)
Final Thoughts
THE LIVING CORPSE: RELICS #4 takes a huge step forward in using what, at first, appears to be a cooldown issue and reveals a small detail that reshapes everything we knew about the Living Corpse. The writing skillfully plays up a sense of confusion and gaslighting to help the reader question reality as much as the main character, and the art, especially the coloring, nails the sense that something’s off.
Score: 8.5/10
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