BLISS #5: A Beautiful Rebirth (Spoiler Free Review)

There are very few things in this world that are absolutes, here is what we know. The Grateful Dead did it better than any other band. The only pizza is deep-dish, and Sean Lewis and Caitlin Yarsky are phenomenal. BLISS IS BACK! Benton continues to be such an amazing character; you cannot help but take up arms and accompany him into battle. His drive, character, and soul are something that should an example of who to be.

Issue #5 continues to document Benton’s amazing rebirth and rediscovering who he is. We’ve always known him to be an outstanding soul who is a loyal and dedicated husband and father, who like many of us make mistakes in life. It’s what you do with those mistakes that count. We see this first-hand with Benton, who has found a way to vindicate himself from his past transgressions which are great, however, it puts him on a collision course with Lethe that will undoubtedly be a rumble so massive which the likes have not been seen since the Greasers took on the Socs. As Benton and Lethe do their dance, it’s Perry and Hera that are rabidly going through the swamps of Feral City looking for anything that will help Benton’s cause. There’s a flashback sequence that occurs and we take that deep dive into what a journey to redemption looks like. In pure Lewis fashion, the reader is challenged with looking within themselves and possibly finding answers to questions they didn’t know were there.  Empathy, hopelessness, and the ability to rise from the ashes are some of the constant themes that continue to adorn the pages. There is more of a good guy vs bad guy feel in this issue that we haven’t seen in past issues but fret not because everything that we love about Bliss is ever-present with the start of the next arc. The complex angles, deep emotional characters, exceptional storytelling, and gorgeous art make Bliss the gem that it is.

I’m not too sure what else I can say about Sean Lewis and Caitlin Yarsky that I haven’t already said and that you don’t already know. I’ve read a lot of great reviews for Bliss, as well as written reviews for this book, and the one thing that they all have in common is the ecstatic praise for Lewis and Yarsky, and it’s all true. I will put Bliss against any comic on the shelves, very few if any are going to come close to being the complete package that Bliss is. Exceptional writing, exceptional art, beautiful message, not too many books are doing this right now. You don’t read Bliss, you experience it.