We Only Find Them When They're Dead #4 Review: High Grade Sci-Fi

This series's premise relies heavily on the existence of "gods" — humanoids the size of a city, inert upon discovery, with minerals and resources that can be mined to fuel human industry. One was discovered in the last issue, still alive as the end of a grim chase between two people with old business and three ambitious younger spacers with their own ambitions.

Al Ewing does great work with this script in creating a sense of tension and urgency for almost all the players on the field, as technology stalls and danger looms with a ticking clock running down. It would be nice if Mariasara Miotti brightened up the colors a bit, but in the depths of space, one would presume that lighting is hard to come by. That said, the visuals presented by Miotti, Simone Di Meo, and Andworld Design still give the reader a sense of both the claustrophobia of these ships and the grandeur of the infinite beyond their viewports.

Regrettably, only the mystery slowed the momentum here, as the voice most worth hearing remained functionally silent, with no actual means of understanding the "god" here and an outcome that was both unanticipated and unfortunate makes it much harder to imagine what could be said. That's a big missed opportunity, as it may give legs to the series, but it takes a bite out of the meaning of this issue, leaving only the personal stakes on the table.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead #4 is still high-grade sci-fi that, collected certainly, will be remarkable. However, in this single issue, we could have harvested a bit more from what's available here and been better off. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.