SiKtC #9: Not the Usual Suspects…

This week’s issue in my opinion will give fans three things they want, the Erica and James reunion, a slight peek into Erica’s backstory and an amp up in the action!

I noted that the last issue maintained the momentum and this one thankfully delivers on that with opening up with a gory explosive return of the monsters cornering a fleeing Tommy who stumbles upon the naive older brothers of the child victim he found mutilated. One brother instantly meets the same fate while in a paralyzed shock.

What I must mention here is I love how the book and Tynion paces the story so not to go too over the top or spoil us with a constant of the gory action scenes, now as much as I love to see moments like this within this title and others, Dell’edera and Muerto illustrate these scenes so expertly that it adds a reward like feeling to a horror reader. It somehow felt fresh opening like this.

Next, we finally get that reunion of James and Erica which I am sure many were anticipating, I always love when a writer can enable dialogue to be cut straight to the chase when possible and that’s what we get here instead of a heart to heart moment, James calls Erica out and she immediately admits to wanting to use him as bait in her plan. This works perfect in the pace of the story instead of injecting a lot of back and forth which could possibly lead to a few lackluster pages.

The most interesting of this interaction though is we finally get a look into Erica’s past which while short-lived gave us two important take-aways, Erica’s parents were murdered by the monster and that Erica’s first encounter with her mentor interestingly mentions she captured the wounded monster and caged it in Erica’s favorite stuffed toy (the octopus) which I know m not the only one that wanted to dive more into that!

To finish up Erica is interrupted by a girl who frantically tells her that Tommy called to report a other dead kid from that we re-visit sheriff Cavanaugh in the morbid makeshift gym-morgue who gets interrupted by an officer claiming a family heard noises coming form the forest, finally we see Tommy trying his best to save the remaining brother only to fail and meets his breaking point after seeing so much death calling to the monsters to kill him too until the Sheriff shows up gun raised telling Tommy (who’s comforting a body in a pool of blood) to put his hands on his head.

Another great cliffhanger – is Tommy now a lead suspect in the eyes of the Sheriff? Who at this point probably doesn’t want to believe it’s something more sinister or will the monsters or Erica intervene somehow during this scene in the next issue – perfect anticipation for the next issue.