Love Everlasting #10 // Review
Joan Peterson has a problem. It may be in the past now. It might well be something that's well and fully behind her as she finds herself in a nursing home, ready to completely retire to the end of a life that has gone quite well, all things considered. Old problems have a habit of coming back in Love Everlasting #10. Writer Tom King continues a remarkably compelling story of Love and eternity with artist Elsa Charretier and colorist Matt Hollingsworth. King plays deftly with expectation in a smartly-constructed story of hell echoing through one woman's heart.
Joan's happy. She's got kids. She's got grandkids. She's had a full and happy life behind her. She's ready to fade out into the world beyond...but there's something nagging at her. And it's something that she can't seem to escape. There's this gentleman at the nursing home. She's been spending an awful lot of time with him. Clearly, there's no harm in it, but she's convinced that "till death do you part" works both ways. She may be a widow, but she still has a vow to keep. But is that REALLY why she's trying not to let herself feel too much too soon?
King's look at the nature of immortality is an interesting one. He's got a tremendous amount of patience in laying out the full reality of a life and managing to do so in a way that feels perfectly well rendered on the page. And as an art form, comic books tend to play very much into the immediacy of the moment. King is using the page and panel in a way that fully illustrates the length and breadth of a full life. And then things hit in a jolt, and the whole premise of the series gets hammered into place again.
Charretier and Hollingsworth manage a tight feeling of warmth throughout the issue that lingers right through Joan's later years. All is well, and she's happy. Charretier and Hollingsworth allow the quiet, retiring moments in old age to slowly embrace her in long, steady moments of sustained peace. The splash page of the next life mercilessly destroys the notion of happiness. The panels get jagged and dark...well, out of view of what it is that's going on. It's starkly disturbing and dazzlingly sharp at the same time Charretier brilliantly frames the horror of the issue's climax with brilliantly cold emotional precision.
It had been a dream. Something that was very pleasant and relaxed. Then things change. Any reader knows that change is coming. King's delivery of the story keeps the inevitable seeming tantalizingly out of the immediacy of the moment until the next splash page hits and the cycle of the series sets in one more time. The entire reality of the horror is only beginning to set in ten issues, and it's breathtaking to watch it all unravel the way it is. Joan has been so painstakingly rendered in tender moments. Now the horror really hits.
