In TOUCHING EVIL #17, available from Source Point Press on September 29th, 2021, the political elites responsible for Ada’s death spin the news to protect Sen. Barr. Meanwhile, Oliver prepares to use the curse for revenge.
The Details
- Written By: Dan Dougherty
- Art By: Dan Dougherty
- Colors By: Emily Zelasko, Wesley Wong, Milena Deneno
- Letters By: Dan Dougherty
- Cover Art By: Dan Dougherty
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: September 29, 2021
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Was It Good?
It’s a mixed bag with this latest installment in the ongoing series. While there are developments with Oliver setting a plan in motion to take revenge during a public event, there’s a lot of people standing around and talking. This issue could have used a pick-me-up with pacing and a little fat trimming.
To be fair, the pacing may suffer from having too many threads going on all at once. Every plot and sub-plot is given adequate attention, but when every thread is given room to breathe with a limited page count, none of them move very far. The story structure is reminiscent of the soap opera stereotype where the same conversation/argument is spread out over one or two weeks because no one actor is allowed to monopolize the entire episode. For some readers, this soap opera style of pacing may suit just fine. For others, it may feel like the story is slowing to a crawl.
The central plot development focusing on Oliver does make some material headway. The creators make interesting use of Oliver’s curse to get information from the people trapped in limbo to help him get what he needs to facilitate his plans for revenge. Nobody will miss a car owned by a dead woman if she’s confirmed dead by natural causes. Who would miss it? Or the gun she keeps in her safe? Or her spare cash? The method Oliver uses to get personal information out of the nurse is a clever bluff, and it makes you wonder what other ways Oliver could “use” the dead to his advantage.
The art works well enough to make each character unique and distinctive during their conversations. That said, the art appears to be severely referenced, meaning it looks like reproductions of real-life people. However, it looks a little too referenced in a few panels, giving the impression Dougherty photoshopped the comic using pictures of his friends and co-workers. Visually, it’s offputting but that may be more subjective preference than an objective flaw. Your mileage may vary.
Overall, this issue is a mixed bag of multiple threads getting some attention at the expense of pacing with a visual style that may not be to everyone’s liking.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Avoid story limbo by first reading out TOUCHING EVIL #16 review first.
As noted in the critique above, there’s a little too much going on to cover every detail, so we’ll simply cover the quick points.
Oliver found a clever way to engage with his “victims” in limbo by knocking himself out with an anesthetic. While under, Oliver convinces the nurse who tried to kill him to give him her personal information as payment to be freed from whatever comes next. It’s an interesting play on the idea of penance to get out of purgatory. Oliver uses the nurse’s information to raid her house for money, a gun, her car, and anything else he can use to get to the Mayor’s funeral unnoticed.
Barr, Harris, and Meister meet to discuss the events at the hospital and start piecing together who the players are so they can keep attention away from Barr. Harris reveals the results of his investigation and figures out that Ada is dead, the hospital escapee is Oliver, and that they have Ada’s journal with the names of the connected players. Meister sets a plan in motion to put all the suspicion on Brown as a prison escapee who likely killed the Mayor.
We conclude the issue with Marcy bringing Betty up to speed, Brown being forced to dig a grave, Ms. Drake offering herself to the Pastor with disastrous results, and Oliver making it to the funeral.
Final Thoughts
TOUCHING EVIL #17 has a lot going on, possibly too much. While the individual scenes are well-written, no individual plot thread makes enough progress to engage the audience, and it makes for a slow and muddled reading experience.
Score: 6.5/10
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