Comic Review: Euthanauts #5

Euthanauts #5

IDW Comics

Writer: Tini Howard

Artist: Nick Robles

In comic books generally, death is rarely the end. Characters die, come back, die, and so on. It’s very much ingrained in the medium. Euthanauts, however, takes a more literal approach to this notion. Essentially, Euthanauts is about exploring the “Deathspace”, the place where human consciousness goes when you die.

So far, Euthanauts has had overall excellent if slightly confusing writing and this issue holds up to the standards of the other issues. In a book ostensibly about death, Tini Howard does a wonderful job ironically bringing life to the book’s characters, even the technically dead ones like Mercy Wolfe. Mercy’s beautifully written narration frames the opening of this issue, and much like the rest of the writing in this series, is a wonderful commentary on the nature of death. The plot of this issue follows main character Thalia as she descends again into the Deathspace to retrieve Mercy, and to say too much more would probably go into spoiler territory. This book isn’t heavily action-laden, but more ponderous in its musings on death, relying very much on character narration and dialogue. In some books that could, perhaps, be an issue, but Howard has such a fantastic grasp of the characters and their individual voices that it never really becomes a problem. Each character feels fully realized, especially Mercy Wolfe and Indigo, who brings a more shamanistic and spiritually driven perspective to the scientific-minded Euthanauts. It’s an interesting, poignant book, though I found remembering what events transpired in previous issues a tad difficult given the slightly surreal nature of the series, and getting my head around some of the more conceptual aspects was a little bit of a challenge. It’s well-crafted but requires a reasonable amount of focus from the reader.

Nick Roble’s art is absolutely gorgeous, especially in sequences set in the Deathspace, where he gets to be imaginative with his illustrations. The Deathspace itself, as drawn by Roble, is hauntingly beautiful, filled with strange patterns and stars shining out in an empty blackness, and the Euthanaut suit designs for Thalia and Mercy are fantastic, merging elements of diving suits and space suits with a slightly Ditko-esque aesthetic that makes for really unique designs. Every page of this book is brilliantly detailed, from the character’s faces to a tangled mass of wooden vines that is present in the Deathspace. The Deathspace really, truly feels vast, magnificent and unknown, which helps add to the incredible sense of exploration that this book has.