Comic Review: Faithless II #4

Faithless II #4

BOOM! Studios

Writer: Brian Azzarello

Artist: Maria Llovet

The fourth issue of Faithless has just been released and I think it’s important to recap what the series is about. Faithless is mainly an erotic horror series about a young girl called Faith who has supernatural powers. Throughout the series, she’s slowly being seduced by characters who are meant to symbolise evil forces such as Satan. As the series goes on Faith starts to use her powers more and more and in increasingly violent ways. It gets to a point where it’s hard to tell who’s responsible for which horrific events in the comic. Is it Faith or is it these evil forces? That’s the general idea and appeal of Faithless. Azzarello is making us ask ourselves, is there some force behind all of the humanity of the evil act commits? How much of it is just us?  It’s easy to get lost in the supernatural aspects and the symbolism of this book though. You might forget that there are slice-of-life elements to this story too though. Faith is an artist who’s becoming more and more popular and that’s what a lot of this issue focuses on. Let’s get into the review.

The story starts off with Faith attending an event in Italy where her recent artwork is on show. After some flattery from the art critics and Louis, she decides to do some sightseeing. The first stop on her tour is the building where she had met Louis at the end of the last issue. This building happens to be the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, sometimes referred to as “The Devil’s Palace”. The name is mostly due to the satanic imagery on its front door. It’s a real-life location in Turin that’s associated with numerous supernatural tales. Most of them involve someone dying in a horrific manner. Here, Faith meets a young man named Melchi who offers to show her around Italy. Of course, things aren’t exactly that simple but I don’t want to spoil anything. That’s just the basic premise of this issue.

I absolutely loved the writing in this issue. There’s a bit of Poppy, Lily, and Louis in here but the main focus is on developing our central character. Faith has mostly been very accepting of the situation she’s in. Her growing supernatural powers and the behavior of her supporting cast hasn’t seemed to phase her much. I’d describe her as passive at times and that can get boring after a while. In this issue, Azzarello regularly shows her intelligence through her knowledge of Italian culture and the occult during dialogue. We’ve been shown that she has this knowledge before but it’s been a while. This helps reinforce the idea that our protagonist has her own personality and interests which makes her more relatable. There’s also hints that Faith is starting to see Louis for what he really is. It leaves you wondering how she’ll act around him as the story continues in future issues.

The art by Llovet is beautiful as always. It straddles the line between cartoonish and realistic but it always manages to look good. The characters emote well through their body language and facial expressions. One of my pet peeves in comics is artists who recycle the same faces and body types throughout a story. Maria seems to have avoided that too. We’re introduced to two new characters here and they don’t visually remind me of any other characters in the series. They’re distinct and it does a lot to help them stand out and make them memorable.  I love that kind of attention to detail in a comic. Speaking of that, one of the things that hit me right away was the art in Faith’s exhibition. In the opening pages, we’re shown this gala with all these paintings on display. They’re all unique. Some artists would’ve just shown you one or two different paintings and hidden the rest behind the crowd. Llovet makes sure they’re all on display and you can see the finished versions of Faith’s artwork from previous issues. Between all this and the stunning panels of Italy and its landmarks, this issue is just a visual treat.

The lettering is great throughout the issue. We get differently coloured text boxes to show when one character is texting another. The colours help the reader understand who’s speaking at a given time. There’s the use of bold lettering to highlight key parts of the dialogue in the story. We also get a number of instances where large, colourful punctuation marks are used to illustrate characters’ reactions to things. An example is Faith being awoken by the sound of laughter. We see a question mark next to her head that helps emphasise her confusion. There’s also a unique use of onomatopoeia throughout the issue. Normally this would be simple sound effects like a “POW!” when someone is punched. Here, entire words are sometimes used to illustrate loud noises occurring outside or sometimes inside the panel. It’s quite an interesting little technique. It highlights the sounds but it’s also used to build curiosity and make you wonder what’s causing the noise. It just gives the reader another reason to keep reading the book.

In summary, this was an incredible issue. The story mostly focused on developing Faith and hinting at friction between her and Louis. Azzarello does a fantastic job of that while still including subtle horror elements. The art is breath-taking. We’ve seen Italy in this series before but there’s more attention paid to Faith’s surroundings this time since she’s sight-seeing. It makes for some gorgeous imagery. The lettering is done to an amazing standard and it gets very creative throughout the book. I’ve been really enjoying this series and this issue just sums up every reason why. I can’t say this is a great jumping-on point for new readers. We’re 4 issues into the second volume of this series after all. I still highly recommend this to existing fans. If you haven’t tried Faithless then I suggest you track down the previous nine issues because this series is mind-blowing.