Finally! What seems like months this series is going back into the ongoing story. Not that I’m complaining, but it did feel like this book was going into different tangents for a while. Of course that isn’t a bad thing. This series has turned into one of the best for Image, and for the entire industry, because of a lot of factors. Mainly: The humor and the incredible artwork by Rob Guillory. Funny how those two go hand and hand.

Let me go back and explain why I loved Layman bringing back the main story. The occultists who are trying to kill all of these people was a great idea when it first came about. So I’m glad he is bringing it up again here. First off though we have Tony Chu get back on his feet and it is great to see how pissed he is. Who knows how long till he gets his vengeance but it’s nice to see him have a purpose again. (And not be a coma victim) Just because this issue starts seriously doesn’t mean we don’t have some good jokes here. Layman finds a right balance of humor and seriousness and it is weird to see anything ‘serious’ with this title.

You know what to expect going into this series: Rob Guillory draws some straight up, hilarious stuff here. That and he plugs in some clever ‘hidden’ jokes throughout the issue. So instead of boring you by repeating myself let me indulge on what really impressed me here. First off, I LOVED how Guillory used the cover to start the issue and contrasting it with the first ‘interior’ page. I loved how he used the wind in the opening pages to set the tone (i.e.: depressing). The coloring also should be noted mainly because Guillory does it as well with assists by Taylor Wells. The orange both men uses when the people go on fire really looked great. The cross hatching really made it stood out. They also use the same color to bring up the final pages and it really works to set the mood. (Mainly, you can sense the anger from the cult leader because of the orange hue.)

There’s a lot to love with this issue besides the usual tropes. Yes this has a lot of funny moments and Rob Guillory draws one hell of an issue again. But some of the techniques he (and his coloring assistant) uses inside these pages are what really impressed me. That and the tone slightly changed with this issue and now I think we’re going to see a more serious side to this book. Okay, maybe not TOO serious since we’ll have some pretty ridiculous moments for sure. But even a slight change to an already perfect series is always welcomed in my book.