When the last issue of Sweet Tooth came out, the iFanboy staff came to a concensus that issue four was The Issue You’re Going To Love that DC creators said was going to take place in this series.  I disagreed.  The story just seemed to lumber on.  The art was ok, but not particularly noteworthy.  I had decided that I wasn’t going to even pick up issue #5, but I flipped open to a certain page and thought “Wow.  That’s the best page in this series since he drew that sweet-ass tree in issue #1.

I’m fairly certain that THIS is the issue people are going to love.  While there’s been “action” in the previous stories and some character development, it all seemed sort of forced to me.  As though Lemire was deliberately setting us up to feel a certain way, so he could sweep the rug out from under us.  And that’s what he’s done.  Issues two to four, in my opinion, were deliberately plodding setups for this issue.  Was it woth it?  Well, not for me.  I’d have much rather had those three issues condensed into one, or even skipped completely.  Because this issue is phenomenal.

Lemire’s art literally shines on many of these pages.  His use of the sun here is gorgeous.  And , early on he does a breakaway panel layout that many artists employ, but few succeed in making breathtaking.  Lemire has done it here.  And the stark backgrounds in the last few pages?  Wow.

After panning the last few issues (and, again, I don’t think they were really necessary…they were clearly done for an emotional gut punch, that I think people would have felt anyway), this is so far my by far front runner for Pick Of The Week.