Written by: Mark Millar
Art by: Greg Capullo & FCO Plascencia
Publisher: Image
Spoiler & Adult Language Warning because I stopped caring and you should too.
I called it! I fucking called it! Back in December, when issue #3 came out, I said, “The dog is never dead. The dog is pocket deus-ex machina for chapter five, and we’re supposed to cry tears of joy because Roy Boy is magically not a corpse now,” and now we’re on issue #5, and guess who’s back to life? The stupid fucking dog!
Guys, I just might adore how awful Reborn is.
Okay, so issue #5 does something Reborn should have done in issues #2, #3, and #4 and that’s make us care about the damn characters. #1 was a good start—a wonderful start if I’m being honest—but then everything went to hell as soon as Bonnie entered Narnia. She also stopped being a person. Her father was never a person.
It’s too little too late though. I already hate these walking clichés, and giving me any semblance of backstory (none of which is original by any stretch of the imagination) is almost offensive. You mean to tell me there are good ideas hidden under all the high-fantasy nonsense? Why are we just getting to them?
Because yes, Bonnie finally taking a moment to compare her new, save-the-world body with her old dying-of-cancer body is a good sequence. It makes sense, and it’s well written. It touches on some actual themes and dark pieces of introspection that actually matter, and it ends with our first real sense of joy in the whole comic. Reborn isn’t just the title, as it turns out!
And then more crappy fantasy things happen alongside some really stupid twists. We also get the villain’s motive, which is about as evil-for-the-sake-of-evil as you can get.
My opinions on the artwork for this series have jumped between, “It’s pretty good,” to “it’s okay.” Issue #5 finally gives us some panels that I find to be outright bad. The fantasy stuff is growing bland, there are some really awkward facial expressions, and there’s blood graffiti on a wall that looks so detached from said wall that it’s kind of amusing. It also looks like actual graffiti.
Reborn remains bad, and no one is surprised. So, let’s continue the guessing game! #6 ends the series, and I predict these two things will happen: One, it will end on a dues ex machina; two, Bonnie’s mother will be the evil chimera the big-bad is boning off screen.
Bonus round is she’ll do the dues ex machina thing to save the day.
