For those new comers, Welcome to the world of In Purgatory
Greetings fellow Soda Drinkers! Today I would like to bring you a review of this little indie comic called “In Purgatory”.
I’ll be upfront with you dear reader. When I was assigned to review this comic, I had no idea what is was or who the creator was at the time. With some digging, however, I discovered that Kieran Jack (series creator) is an up-and-coming talent through his own publishing company Halftone Productions.
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Much of his work has been funded through Kickstarter, and those that have supported his work say they are very happy with the quality. With all of that in mind, what are we dealing with here? As this is issue #3, we will have a brief recap of what the story is about in total.
Welcome to the Universe of Purgatory
Death is having an extensional crisis about his purpose in existence. Meanwhile, “The Behemoth” is being overthrown by his son and is on the run while said Son becomes the new ruler of the underrealm. Whole thing gets thrown into Chaos and we go on a journey to see if it can be fixed.
The third issue of “In Purgatory” opens with Death reminiscing about his time as a member of the 4 Horsemen. It goes on a brief description on each member, but more importantly, it talks about some of the things they’ve done for “The Behemoth”. Specifically it was their crusade that led to the Underrealm and Purgatory being split into two.
With all that is happening the comic thus far, Death feels personally responsible for it. As part of said actions with the Horsemen, and he laments as such to War. Who, promptly, has this to say about the whole situation:
With that pep talk out of the way, the Horsemen ride off to find “The Behemoth”. As, apparently, part of the coup attempt he is on the run from his kid and that kids servants.
Meanwhile, in the Palace of Doom
Behemoth Jr, as I will be calling him, is having a meeting with his lieutenants which is clearly not going well. He isn’t all that happy that his father escaped, and has enforced a plane wide manhunt for him. The minions make their usual placating measures, however the lass in the corner is of particular note.
According to a masterpost on Kickstarter where a few characters are given names, she is known as Mischief Maker. As we can see in the panel, she is also touting around Death’s scythe. I can only imagine in a previous issue that the scythe was stolen by her thus elevating her to the position as Behemoth Jr’s Death.
Even with that said, she doesn’t seem to in line with the new leader’s position. In later pages she is shown to be strangled by Behemoth Jr as a means of asserting dominance over her. Yet she only seemingly takes it in stride, whispering a pseudo-threat under her breath as she leaves the chamber.
Then this happens.
In order to find the location of the Behemoth, Death recommends going to find a fella by the name of Popobawa. Part information broker, bigger part pervert, War isn’t very enthusiastic about meeting him. Still, the four horseman together do go to have a meeting. Which promptly has three of them tucked into a corner with only Death getting the meeting proper.
There they discuss the big topics: How Death keeps a portal open to the living world for Popobawa only, how there is a prophecy about the dead rising in the living world. The real important bit is that last bubble, where Popobawa talks about a “Hex”. I can only assume that it is a person of some significance. Because when Popobawa says the name (we the audience don’t see it) Death drops his cup in shock.
He doesn’t get much time to contemplate this revelation though. War and Conquest break up the meeting stating that they have head hunters after them. Popobawa provides them with an escape route, but it is all in naught.
Closing Thoughts
In Purgatory was an interesting, if off kilter, read for me. Having jumped into the series on issue 3 meant there was a lot of context I was missing. I would even go so far as to say there are a lot of details relevant in this issue that just didn’t click with me. Having said that, as a stand alone issue, it was a pretty decent read.
My only real issue is the pacing when it comes to character interactions. In this issue we only know Pestilence for a brief period of time until at the end he turns out to be a traitor. As this series is going to be 12 issues long, that seems to be something that happened blistering fast. It had no real weight to me reading, then again, there could have been much more interaction in the previous two issues that I just didn’t read.
If you enjoyed this review, or have an interest in trying out the series for yourself then head to Halftone Productions, wherever comics are sold in your area, or Comixology.
Happy reading!
