Mark Allen reviews East of West #29…
East of West #29 is a milestone for the series in many ways. Firstly, the issue marks the end of the comic’s “second” year (despite the first issue being released in 2013) and its second major arc. It also sees the Horseman Death meeting his son Babylon for the first time, something the story has been building up to for a long, long time.
The issue begins with an action sequence in which Babylon attempts to fend off three assassins, each with their own uniquely irritating personalities. Hickman’s tendency to overstate a character’s quirks through overwritten dialogue comes out here, but Dragotta’s kinetic action and gnarly character design makes up for it in an action-heavy issue that doesn’t bog itself down in backstory as much as previous issues.
Although this is the strongest instalment of East of West for a long time, there’s something unsatisfying about Babylon’s meeting with his father. The interaction they share feels guarded and devoid of revelation other than their actual presence in the same space, and their union feels less like emotional catharsis than just another plot point on Hickman’s meandering, convoluted timeline. As mentioned in previous reviews, a major problem with this series is that it always feels like it’s building to something that we never quite reach, every issue ending in a cliffhanger that is rarely resolved in a solid, meaningful way. This kind of “mystery box” storytelling might work better for short-form narrative like cinema that can afford to misdirect and confound audience until the finale because they’re only spending a couple of hours with that story.
It starts to grate when you’ve been fed a tale with the same attitude towards audience satisfaction for over three years and little hope of an end in sight. Here’s hoping “Year Three” does something to change that.
Rating: 5/10
Mark Allen
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Originally published September 8, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
