Writer: David Hine
Artist: Jeremy Haun
Colorist: John Rauch
Letterer: Troy Peteri
Editor: Bryan Rountree and Matt Hawkins
Publisher: Top Cow Productions
Audience: M/Mature
Final Score: 9/10
On Sale: January 2, 2013
Price: $2.99
Format: FC
Pages: 32
“BREAKING DARK,” Part Four
Jackie Estacado has made a lot of enemies, but he has no idea how powerful the gangster Balakov has become. Without the Darkness at his command, will Jackie be able to protect his family? DAVID HINE (THE DARKNESS: FOUR HORSEMEN, THE BULLETPROOF COFFIN) and JEREMY HAUN (ARTIFACTS, Detective Comics) conclude their second story arc that will question everything you think you know about the Top Cow universe.
Issue 109 of The Darkness is the final part of the four part Breaking Dark arc, and I have to repeat myself, which I hate to do, I have no idea what David Hine and Jeremy Haun have in store for the Jackie, his family, his world and the readers.
Jackie’s Doppleganger has been up to more of his ‘games’ but to what end? What will happen to Jackie if the Doppleganger keeps at what he has been doing? Even more important what is it he is doing? Is he (is a doppleganger a he or an it?) infecting people with the Darkness? Is the Darkness infecting them with a madness or darkness? What comes next? Yes I am posing lots of questions for you because to do otherwise might spoil things. And what about Hope? What/Who is she becoming? Is she going to be as sick and twisted as the Doppleganger? Or is there goodness in her that will temper the strange powers she has acquired? The Darkness passes down the male line and as the father conceives the son the father dies, so how do we explain Hope and the strange powers? Or is it that with how she acquired the powers she is outside the rules? Or even more… was the fact he conceived a daughter and not a sone what makes her an exception?
There are as many questions created by the Breaking Dark arc as have been answered. Wait, that’s not right! There are more questions after the Breaking Dark arc than before we started reading four issues ago. So many things that can still be twisted and turned before we discover where our Team Sick and Twisted of Hine and Haun are taking us. I love the unexpected twists and turns (sick or not) that they bring to this series. It is something that makes the reader keep coming back wanting to know more. Wanting to know, what next? What can they do to top this one? I for one intend to keep coming back to get these answers and more.
Final score for issue 109… a whopping 9/10. The art, the story, the twists and turns, all of these are what make this one of the best comics out there for anybody that enjoys a book that is a bit dark, a bit sick and definitely twisted. Check it out!
