The City Beneath Her Feet #3: An Explosive Finale

The City Beneath Her Feet ends so explosively that it almost feels like the first issue and the last come from completely different series. The throughline for the whole thing is Zara, and thanks to the development Tynion gave her, The City Beneath Her Feet #3 proves to be a successful conclusion to the series.

Zara and Jasper Jayne’s relationship forms a sort of closed loop in The City Beneath Her Feet #3. Jasper was a kind of ephemeral presence when the story began, and she leaves Zara with nothing tangible in the end. The way it unfolds actually plays into Zara’s friend Erin’s earlier discussion about whether Jasper is even real. Tynion is absolutely not playing with the idea that all of these events only happened in Zara’s head. But at the same time, there is something compelling in all of this being solely Zara’s experience.

Jasper’s character has to be reconsidered in the wake of The City Beneath Her Feet #3. For the whole series she’s come off (and been described at times) as being flighty and not spending much time doing serious planning of any kind. Liz especially pushes this description of her friend. And yet, at the end of the day, Jasper was apparently very purposeful in the last thing she did to Zara. In some ways the development is the biggest surprise in this issue.

Charretier’s art and Bellaire’s colors create multiple visual worlds in The City Beneath Her Feet #3, all of which prove very successful in different ways. The color palette for action sequences is almost entirely yellow, orange and red. The art has a rougher quality, at times even feeling closer to sketches than a finished product. Action remains linear but individual panels feel more like snapshots with the progression coming across as somewhat jumpy. This style creates a fast, energetic pace.

This fast paced art and intense, hot color scheme gives way to something altogether different in a quieter sequence that features Zara and Liz after the action has concluded. Bellaire uses a much cooler color scheme, largely lying on faded pink and blue. Action between panels doesn’t feel jumpy at all; indeed, Carretier sometimes makes only very subtle changes from one panel to another depending on the nature of the characters’ interaction. The extreme contrast from the action visuals to these slows the pace down considerably, allowing the reader a respite from the extreme tension in the same way that Zara gets one.

The third visual style is applied to Zara’s confessional style monologue in the subway station. The color scheme is made up almost entirely of yellow and two shades of blue. This color scheme feels the coldest by far, and it works for the setting. These sequences feature a lot of closeups, and as a result Zara is more emotionally accessible than she is in other sequences in the book.

There are several scenes that are text heavy. This is especially the case with the monologue sequences in the subway. Bidikar uses a text that is smaller than is typical but still easy to read which allows more text in each dialogue bubble. The result is fewer bubbles to get in the war of artwork. Fewer bubbles also speeds up reading which keeps the story moving.