Bitter Root: The Next Movement #4 // Review
There are demons. There is some question as to whether the best solution is purification or something far more...brutal. It’s 1934. It’s Harlem. There’s discussion regarding this in a kitchen. They’ve been fighting the Jinoo for a very, very long time, but nothing seems to be working. They’re going to have to figure out some other way of handling matters in Bitter Root: The Next Movement #4. The writing team of Chuck Brown and David F. Walker continue their long and winding sage with artist Sanford Greene. Though the narrative jumps around a lot, the underlying story feels substantial enough to make it worth the work of figuring out what the hell is going on.
And precisely what the hell IS going on is a matter that’s being discussed in a kitchen in Harlem in 1934 as a heavily armed ad armored tower of a man heads into the heart of danger in Katchakhun, Mississippi in 1964. He’ll be attacked by vines in darkness as children overhear the discussion going on in the kitchen in Harlem thirty years prior to year he’s being attacked. Meanwhile, one hour ago there’s a conversation between a well-dressed man and a small town sherif regarding “unwanted attention from unwelcome troublemakers.”
There’s also a few things going on in Central Tennessee in 1925. It’s a pretty dizzying fusion of a whole bunch of different narrative elements that all come together to address matters that are rooted in heavy symbolism regarding race relations throughout the 20th century and so much more. It’s very, very dense stuff on a deeply thematic level, but on the surface it’s more of a pulpy monster story that never quite feels like it’s gaining the right momentum to really generate the kind of horror that it would really need to be able to engage on a deeper visceral level.
This is not to say that the deeper human end of the drama isn’t present on the page at all. Quite the opposite in fact. Greene carves-out some very deep emotional terrain on the page that feels profoundly deep and goes way beyond simple supernatural horror. If anything...the supernatural horror doesn’t really hit the page with a whole lot of intensity when contrasted against the nuanced restlessness of the deeper human drama that’s hitting the page throughout the issue. It’s profound work that’s going on. It’s very, very deep stuff.
Brown, Walker and Greene are working on something of great complexity that’s very difficult to judge as it’s emerging on the comics page. That being said, it’s also very, very difficult to feel all that drawn-in by it in any given issue because there IS so much going on in the course of it. Brown, Walker and Green rarely manage to summon a good establishing moment throughout the issue...and tto a certain extent throughout the series thus far. It’s all so very dense that it’s difficult to find a way completely into the heart it.
