Category: Chronicles of Wormwood
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If this series had end credits, “With a Little Help from My Friends” would play over them. Ennis should call the next series The Wonder Years. And there should be a third series, because for all my cynicism, Ennis does the impossible and leaves this Wormwood with more potential than he did the first series.…
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Ennis is a cruel dude. He becomes up with one of the better cliffhangers I can think of in the comic book medium, just because it plays with the reader’s hopes for the characters and his or her affection for them, but it doesn’t do anything dangerous so to speak. Great cliffhanger (shame Jimenez isn’t…
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Ennis is definitely building to the conclusion. He’s put a character in danger, he’s raised the stakes with Wormwood… he’s even giving Jay a lot to do. At this point, none of it feels rushed. In fact, the issue is kind of long in the tooth with Pope Jacko’s insights into being damned. It’s a…
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What the heck is Ennis doing? He’s half done with Last Battle and he’s maybe a quarter done with the story he’s trying. Unless he ends the universe. If he ends the universe I’m going to be very, very angry. Worries aside, it’s another strong issue. It’s mostly Wormwood dealing with Jimmy outing himself in…
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Jimenez’s lack of humor hurts this issue too. Ennis brings back a very funny character and Jimenez can’t balance the humor and the horror. I mean, Ennis brings the character back from Hell so it’s got to be a little disturbing, but to lose the humor is a mistake. Otherwise, the issue sails by. Wormwood…
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Oscar Jimenez is not the right artist for Chronicles of Wormwood. He’s doing a Jacen Burrows (the original series’s artist) impression and it just doesn’t work. He doesn’t get the humor. He gets the scary, gross-out stuff, but not the humor. And there’s a lot of humor. Oh, there’s drama–lots of drama. Jesus is getting…
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Ennis winds things up relatively quietly. There’s no return of the various supporting cast members—Joan of Arc doesn’t get a cameo, neither does Danny’s ex-girlfriend—instead, it’s just God, the Devil, the Anti-Christ and Jesus. Oh, and the talking bunny rabbit. So it’s an intimate affair, lots of dialogue, a little sleight of hand. The problem…
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And here’s where Vertigo could have made more sensational news than in its entire history… Ennis’s God is a compulsive masturbator. I’d forgotten. Burrows really captures the full page reveal beautifully, as well as Jimmy’s reaction to it. There’s a bunch of great scenes this issue (as usual). Whether it’s Danny beating Judas to death…
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Ennis is clearly gearing things up here for the finish, which is appropriate, I suppose, as he is in the second half of the series. The beginning is more of the boys in Hell on their road trip (Jay eventually gets sick) while Satan and Pope Jacko hang out and try to figure out how…
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There’s a bunch of funny stuff this issue—the trip to Heaven has a great punchline—and Ennis gets in an unexpected Marvelman nod…. But for the first time, in his comic about the LAPD beating in half of Jesus’s head and the Anti-Christ being a pretty good guy all around, Ennis starts to get a little…
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Ennis gets downright playful with the way he uses narrative in this issue. It’s a relatively simple move, but it focuses the reader on the page for a determined amount of time, regardless of how fast he or she usually reads. It’s a nice little trick. The issue opens with Danny bickering with his father—his…
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one… Jesus and the Anti-Christ are sitting in a bar and…. And there’s the pitch for Chronicles of Wormwood. While Ennis does, on occasional, embrace his readers in terms of giving them something not just profound and good but also entertaining, Wormwood takes it to another level. It’s funny,…
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