With Twitter's rapid degeneration, I was kind of hoping a couple of people would switch back to posting on their blogs. But they've gone to various other social media sites I'm not interested in dealing with, like Tiktok. Yeesh. I can barely listen to podcasts, I'm not watching short videos of people talking about comics.
The main cast are each trying to settle into Sangre de Moro in their own ways, some more successfully than others. Dirck's taken to being a preacher, and looking quite a bit less nuts, maybe it's that he went clean-shaven. He definitely isn't drawn as the same overwhelming presence in the panels as he was before. I guess he's shifted away from antagonist to ally. Griffin's acting as a doctor/mortician and bitching endlessly about it. Dooley's running the bar for Rosa, and the lot of them are like some neighborhood watch. Because there are still all sorts of supernatural problems lurking about, and some new ones moving in.
The focus is on the shifting relationships between the four, who is enjoying the change in circumstances, who isn't, where the stress points are. Griffin feels that Dirck's left him behind, stranded him in this place in favor of pursuing the word of God. Dirck is either oblivious or unconcerned by this. Dooley's been questioning why he's sticking with Rosa, and Rosa is actually worried about losing him. So much so she's not fed on anyone for a while, because there's no one sufficiently "evil" that Dooley wouldn't object. Dooley, in turn, seems to have rededicated himself to her after a run-in with a banshee (I like the design Terry goes with for her) dredged up some bad memories.
It still amuses me that Rosa's skin color turns more pink when she's injured or ill. I suppose she couldn't get more pale, so it makes a certain sense. Of course, her solution to her food issue is to jump at Dr. Moreau's notion of bringing the railroad through town, as it will bring New York City (and its large numbers of evil people) to her. Not sure Dirck will approve, since he'd rather save their souls, and Dooley doesn't seem ecstatic about it, either.
Eight people accepted a cruise, which is actually a trap to throw them on a strange island and see if they can find their way through an immense labyrinth without dying. I thought the labyrinth would just be a jungle filled with traps and armed soldiers, but it's an actual giant structure, in the jungle. And each person is wearing some kind of rig with cameras on it, but also a bunch of mechanized blades that will dismember anyone who tries to remove it. I figured it would just blow them up, like Suicide Squad, but I guess that might kill too many at once.
We get to see all eight on pages 2 and 3, complete with their names and the odd titles each of them are given. We don't get much time with most of them, so Underwood has to try and tell us what they can from that page and how each of them pose or smile. It's not much to go on, but the reader can at least make some initial guesses about what they're like. Whether those will turn out to be accurate is another matter.
The issue mostly focuses on J. Roe (titled "The Shield"), and to a lesser extent Nasir Sarafin ("The Terror"), who end up alongside each other when they wake up on the island. Roe is not what she pretends to be, and doesn't do a great job disguising it. Thompson writes them as someone trying for no-nonsense, but coming off more mechanical. She comes up with a few facts about herself when she's alone, and when she introduces herself to Nasir, rattles them off in succession. Including that she loves kayaking, which doesn't seem like something to mention during an introduction in a death maze. There's other little touches, like how she smashes the phone included with the camera rig while Nasir and another guy argue pointlessly.
The actions make sense for the reveal at the end of the issue, but if she's trying to remain inconspicuous, she's not doing a great job. Moot point from our perspective, since by the end of the issue, the people running this thing know about her. But it's an interesting approach, for how it tells us something about Roe.
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