Clear #3: The End Is Here

Clear #3 does so much right as a finale chapter that its unavoidable shortcomings are almost easy to overlook, however, its hard not to feel a tad disappointed with the way Sam Dunes’ tale of secrets and pain comes to a close.

At a technical level, this book has been a marvel since its first issue. Scott Snyder knows how to deliver a narrative in this medium without even batting an eye, understanding when to compress the story and decompress the emotions in order to craft a truly engaging work of literary art. This last chapter is an example of that with an extremely tight opening and an aloof middle that necessarily lives in the moment as the running plot threads all come together. The character work with Sam Dunes feels personal and honest. As Dunes makes a harrowing choice that decides the end of this story, one of Snyder’s most powerful (and near-tropish) use of narrative text boxes occurs. Almost every trick in the medium’s playbook at a scripting level is at hand here, and its near perfect.

Francis Manapul is an artistic tour de force. His colors and layouts are dynamic and highly stylized, evoking and elevating every ounce of story at hand. In his extreme creativity, however, there’s a lack of distraction. There is a consistent level of clarity that makes reading a story with so many moving pieces a breeze. In part, the near perfect coalition of the story happens because of the threads Manapul is able to together with visuals alone.

Clear, as dependent as it is on Snyder’s use of internal monologues, would not hit as hard without its visual storytelling. It isn’t just visual storytelling in the ‘characters make physical actions’ way, but so many thematic and emotional subtly would not be as engaging without Manapul. Its easy to tell the audience that the future world is broken, but when the pencils, wrought with desolation, comb over the world hiding behind the veils, it nearly breaks the readers humanity. The inspiration behind the visuals, as futuristic and fantastical as they are, are so innately tied to the world we see around us in the modern day.

The book stumbles in its last minute twist, that is as subjective as it is objective, as well as its somewhat abrupt ending. While the twist completely changes the story’s vibe, that vibe could either heighten or lessen the story’s emotional impact based on what the reader holds close to their heart. For me, it lessened the impact of what was going on, but the writing and heart poured into the twist is still so damn good that even my own subjective feelings struggle to hold water. That’s the mark of a truly great book. Regardless of what I disagree with as a reader, it doesn’t destroy the rest of the story for me. Objectively speaking, the book does just end, with no real epilogue or bow to place on an otherwise perfectly wrapped story.