The Realm #5

Writer: Seth M. Peck
Artist: Jeremy Haun
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Thomas Mauer
Editor: Joel Enos
Publisher: Image

Review by Jim Allegro

The Realm#5 confirms a rule of thumb for the series: Seth Peck and Jeremy Haun don’t lack for gumption.  Multiple plot lines finally converge in the comic book that endeavors to have it all: elements of fantasy, sci-fi, horror, action, and western set against a post-apocalyptic America that last left our wayward travelers seeking refuge among the wastelands of Kansas.  This final installment of the first story arc stays true to The Realm’s ambitious character, treating its readers to an issue-long battle royale in which the forces of the Lord attack our band and the other residents of Everett’s safe zone.

The ensuing melee is why this Image book has become a fan favorite.  It is an unapologetic book for the unabashed junkie, a testament to a mature and prolific twenty-first century pop culture that has the power to grant us our every wish.  And, in this issue, that boon is an America in which surviving the end times means fighting it out among tentacled monsters, growling orcs,  magic, rusted-out cars, barbed-wire walls, giant flying bats, crossbows, armored wooly mammoths, battle axes, killers wearing bunny rabbit masks, parent-less kids with special abilities, Molotov cocktails, and violence-averse intellectuals.

Haun’s artwork and Nick Filard’s coloring keep this garish concoction from falling apart.  The tableau against which this battle rages is rich, with taut facial expressions, blood-red skies, and multiple angles and viewpoints that lend an air of credibility to an outlandish story.  It is not that this world could ever exist, but that the creators of the comic take on so much that they need to convince us that space could ever exist in our imagination.  The dialogue-free panel, a staple of the comic, helps in this regard.  It allows us to focus on the thoughts and actions of Peck’s sharply-drawn characters, especially the lone fighter, whose path finally crosses our band when he joins in the fighting in the safe zone.

But these virtues can make The Realm a predictable and hollow read.  The characters are sharp because they are simple and one-dimensional.  And, as such, their trajectories follow predictable paths to the issue’s end.  The Weak and Ineffectual cast aside their Fears and Fight.  The Sinister Enemy Connives as the Grizzled Fighter growls, deadpan, lines such as “go kill stuff.”  This reader gets an ache in his head trying to figure out whether such reedy dialogue intends to play on a thousand action films gone by, or if it is just bad writing.  But he knows for certain that Some Must Die to move along the plot, and that One Unsuspecting Character must manifest a Surprising Power that will brings an end to this epic battle.

Not that our traveling band comprehends that last fact.  We should be unhappy with the tidy, if cynical, resolution to the battle plot, which is followed by a foreshadowing trope that also feels excavated from a mountain of stale sci-fi/horror films.  But then we remember why we read The Realm.  And we want to thank Peck and Haun for having the guts to give us this gratuitous gift.  That they fail from time to time is alright, for the lesson of this creator-owned comic is that maybe we cannot have it all.  That it is too much for us junkies to demand novel plot twists and crackling dialogue in a book that has the hubris to use all of our favorite story elements to forge an entertaining and credible world.  And that’s okay.

Verdict: Buy it.

Yes, I guess so, why not, go ahead and BUY IT.  The Image comic that I hate to love wraps up its first story arc with an epic battle that will please you, if you are already pleased by this comic.

Jim Allegro
murdochmatt555@gmail.com

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