Reborn #4 Review

Written by: Mark Millar

Art by: Greg Capullo & FCO Plascencia

Publisher: Image

As far as I’m concerned, Reborn ended its third issue at a crossroad. It could either do something crazy and break out of its awful, awful mold of bad fantasy cliches, or it could continue on its current path and be yet another bad high-fantasy story in a growing sea of them. I just finished #4, and well, it ain’t doing the first option.

Reborn’s use of black-and-white morality is hyperbolic to the point of parody. There is villain who burned a thousand babies on a bonfire as a way to celebrate some evil thing. This makes her, and I quote, “A nasty piece of work.” I don’t know how I’m supposed to process that information. Do I laugh? I almost laughed, because it’s so extreme–so stupid–that my suspension of disbelief shattered.

What happened to subtlety? What happened to character motivations and world building? We’re talking about a comic with evil lands such as Black Wish Mountain, Dead Man’s Rainbow, and Hooligan’s River. What six year old named all of these places?

Moreover, what happens to dead babies when they’re killed in the afterlife? We still haven’t even touched on the most interesting question this comic has offered. The afterlife here is about as nonsensical as the Soul Society in Bleach, but at least Bleach has the decency to be a Shonen anime. It’s allowed stupidity and bad characters.

God and I haven’t even started on the stupid cat! The stupid cat shows up again; you know, the one that’s really pissed off at Bonnie because she had him neutered. Apparently he didn’t regrow his testicles when he entered the afterlife, and he’s super upset about that. He can also talk and has a sword and ice magic for reasons. How come Roy Boy the dog didn’t get any powers? He was just a dumb dog.

And how come Bonnie gets reverted back to a young woman but the cat doesn’t get his balls back? Moreover, how come the cat can talk? I mean, I already covered that question, but it bears repeating. Why are there no rules here, and why are the ones in place stupid?

It doesn’t help that our heroine Bonnie has literal plot armor. It’s one thing for her to get asskicking powers when the plot demands it, which is the first five or so pages of this book, but halfway in her father tells our evil baby burner, “You’re welcome to try [and kill her], but it’s doomed to fail because my daughter’s destined to kill your boss and right a terrible wrong. This whole thing’s been prophesied.”

If there’s one thing I hate more than black-and-white morality, it’s prophecy. What’s worse is we know Bonnie’s father is correct. She’s not going to die. This isn’t the kind of fantasy story that wouldn’t even think of harming her, let alone killing her. There’s a prophecy and she will see it through.

And if I’m somehow wrong about that, well a big shift ten issues from now won’t make issues two through four retroactively good. Bad writing is bad writing. This is bad writing