Written by: Jonathon Hickman
Art by: Tomm Coker & Michael Garland
Publisher: Image Comics
If you’ve tuned into the Comics Dash podcast at all, you’ll know that I’m absolutely in love with Black Monday Murders. There’s this bold-faced confidence to it, both in its narrative and in its art, that I can’t help but respect. I can’t think of any comics in recent memory that break into prose and do it well save maybe Kill or Be Killed, but that comic doesn’t employ actual prose, just the thought of it. This one does.
Issue #4 gets epistolary!
For those keeping tabs, Denial Rothschild is dead, and issue 4 is both his funeral and his backstory. We’ll start with the funeral, which is an amazing dichotomy of pagan and Christian beliefs. We have a room filled with worshipers of money, people who make flesh sacrifices to Satanic deities, and they’re holding what looks like a Christian funeral. If I’m reading everything right, the [redacted] herself is the one giving the ceremony.
I’m a fan. The scene is almost playful in its contradictions, a stunning piece of scenery that both doesn’t make any sense yet follows everything preceding it perfectly. It’s the perfect metaphor for this comic: It’s one part insane and one part unknown. It’s the kind of flawless world building that begs more questions than answers, yet in some strange way, the questions themselves are answers.
And no, that doesn’t make any sense. But it doesn’t make any sense in the best way possible.
The rest of Issue 4 is backstory, and it’s one delivered in letters and flashbacks. The letters are great, nice snapshots of prose that tell more than they need to simply by the way their dated, and the flashbacks are…well, flashbacks.
What the flashbacks do is help humanize some of these characters. They’re money-worshiping Satanists to be sure, but they’re also more than that. Not all the intrigue going on here is for straight wealth or power. It’s nice to have some of these villains—for that is what they are—made sympathetic, and it’s nice to see how they see the world. Once again, it’s more world building that raises questions instead of answers, yet in a good way.
I suppose if there’s one flaw to this issue, it’s that it jumps around more than some of the others. It can be confusing at first, because while the art style absolutely works, there are enough shadows and similarities between characters to blend them together until they start speaking. It’s not a damning flaw, but it is one that’ll make you want to reread the comic to make sure you got the basic plot down.
Black Monday Murders is my monthly highlight. I both don’t want this comic to go on forever because that’s a big commitment, yet I’m also glad it’s showing the potential for a sprawling story with more intrigue and magic in the background. I want to stay in this world awhile longer.
