During a lull in the struggle against the Rot, it’s starting to become immediately apparent that the experience is putting a strain on the Bakers.

I’m not sure what else to say. To be quite frank, there’s good writing here, but it doesn’t feel like the plot progresses much at all. Lemire’s storytelling seems to be very concerned with Buddy’s destiny and making it absolutely clear that he has a job to do, and this issue is no different. The price of failure is high. Only, there have been far more opportunities to remind us of the price of failure than actually threaten us with failure, and that’s kind of a problem.