Falling In Love on the Path to Hell #3 // Review
Insula Arquilibrium is something of a purgatory that is its own kind of hell. It’s an island populated by the unlucky many who must constantly defend themselves against the nightly invasions of the undead. Mohan’s got it under control, though. He’s got the army controlled under his iron grip. It’s nice and everything, but there’s at least one guy who would be happy just to have access to barber for a decent shave in Falling In Love on the Path to Hell #3. Writer Gerry Duggan continues a fun action/romance between two outcasts on an island of the damned. Artist Garry Brown carves-out a very distinctive world in aggressive scratches of aggression, brutality and the darker end of human endeavor.
The gunslinger isn’t particularly good with a blade. The samurai is. She happens by him as he’s trying to shave. A swift slide of the blade leaves a trail of smooth skin on the gunslinger’s face. Then she’s gone. Later-on she’ll show-up just as Mohan’s men seem certain to kill him. She saves his life, but there’s some question about what she has planned for him. She’s no saying a whole lot and he doesn’t know what to expect. He only knows that he needs to rest. He’s in a bad way. He might die.
Duggan is working on a tiny, little canvas that echoes through themes that go back to the dawn of storytelling. A burgeoning love between two people who don’t seem to speak the same language has been done quite often before, but Duggan keeps it feeling more or less fresh in the context of one of the most intermittently hostile and brutal situations imaginable. Placing the romance in an island cut off from the rest of the world allows Duggan to competently explore some meaningful aspects fundamental to human connection.
Brown balances things quite well between the brutality of the action and the stark silence and aggression of the drama. Brown can do remarkable things with silent, nonverbal moments. There’s some beautiful bits of storytelling with the samurai as she hunts for the basics of human survival. Her swift precision in combat hits the page in swift blurs accompanied by crisp sound effects. The relative vulnerability of the gunslinger feels quite palpable as well as he continues to recover from the trials of the first couple of issues of the series.
If the romance is to play ut in a way that’s going to feel balanced, the gunslinger is going to have to reach some level of equilibrium with the samurai at some point. Beyond that, the real challenge is going to lie in making a romance blossom between two characters who may not even speak the same language. There’s a definite rapport between the two central characters, but drawing them both into a romantic situation is going to be very, very tricky in light of the situation they find themselves in with hostilities from others and the nightly incursions of the undead.
