Posted in: Comics, Image, Review | Tagged: aaron campbell, horror, image comics, infidel, José Villarrubia., pornsak pichetshote

Infidel #5 Review: Painful Truths and Tragic Deaths

We see what really happened that night in the apartment and what caused the explosion. In the present, Tom is trying to kill Medina, believing her responsible for what happened to Aisha, Leslie, Kris, and their friends. Medina knows she must get out of the building with the Misbaha if Aisha is going to survive the night, but the entities of the building will do anything to stop her, and Tom isn't in his right mind any longer.

Infidel #5 brings the miniseries to a very bittersweet ending. The comic isn't done killing off its main characters, and it's willing to get brutally honest about what motivates people and the terrible things we do to one another.

No one is entirely innocent. We have collectively made this world. No demographic is perfect. Some groups undeniably have more power and agency in shaping the world, make no mistake, and the comic isn't trying to cover that up. However, no one group is entirely responsible for how the world turned out.

That is all very loaded, obviously, and I still don't feel confident in leaving it up there to go to publish. This is partially because, "No group is perfect," is often followed up by things like "See? White Europeans and Americans didn't totally do a lot to wreck the world with things like colonialism, imperialism, endless amounts of racism." That's not what I'm saying, because white Europeans and Americans totally did do a lot to ruin the world with those practices. The point Infidel is trying to make is we as a species have made mistakes across the board, and we're all human in the end.

The very end is bittersweet too, with no one truly having closure from these events. They're only trying to piece together everything in such a manner as to be able to live their lives again. At this point, that's kind of what we're all trying to do.

Aaron Campbell closes this out with beautifully haunting artwork that takes the mixture of existential dread and body horror innate to the entities' designs to new heights. These things are truly horrific, and their unnatural appearances are complimented well by the highly detailed and pseudo-realistic style with which the other characters are rendered. Jose Villarrubia's color work is nice balance of dark and light as the comic moves from scene to scene.

Infidel #5 is a rough book to make it through, as it reinforces how truly borked everything is. Also, it's hard to get through because its monsters are frigging terrifying. Pornsak Pichetshote finishes the story off with confidence and painful admissions about the state of our world. Plus, Campbell and Villarrubia make sure the book finishes in artistic style. This one gets a final recommendation. Give it a read.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!