Comic Review: Nailbiter Returns #8

Nailbiter Returns #8

Image Comics

Writer: Joshua Williamson

Artists: Adam Guzowski and Mike Henderson

This series continues to impress with its consistent quality and shockingly fast progression. It seems like every issue is more important and bigger than the last. Keeping this theme, Joshua Williamson packs a ton of exposition and character development in an exciting twenty-two pages. Every issue of this series is a revelation. As a reader, you are always just finding out what’s going on with every issue, despite not feeling too lost before. In issue #8, we are filled in with so much information I wonder what I even thought the story was before. In a lesser comic that might be a sign of poor, disconnected writing but Williamson uses it as a tool to keep the reader on the edge of their seat.

This may be the densest issue of Nailbiter Returns we’ve gotten yet, filling the reader in on what this run is all about. Whether or not that backstory is fulfilling is up to the individual reader. If you’re like me, the ending of the previous series left you a bit iffy. As we learn more about what is going on in this run, I start to realize we may be in for more wonky plot lines. However, it is better than a generic story this series could have very easily leaned into. In this issue, particularly in the flashbacks, some of the dialogue feels a bit too melodramatic for my taste. I have no doubt that is the writer’s intent but it didn’t sit too well for me. Saying more would spoil the issue, which is particularly spoiler-sensitive, so I will leave it at that.

Other aspects of the writing in this issue are wonderful. I particularly enjoyed the mildly-meta joke where the Nailbiter forgets the name of a character that every reader has certainly forgotten by that point. More observant readers may have noticed this in a previous issue but I also enjoyed how wonderfully ironic the new villain is. It was made clear in this issue her gimmick involved her nails, something Warren can’t help but pay attention to. This issue has those small but fun moments throughout. Few series get an audible laugh out of me so often.

Even with its quirks, I’m still in love with this series. Perhaps the oddities just make it more memorable. The art is, as always, astonishing. Once again we get to see Henderson have some fun while the characters hallucinate. The simplistic panel layout keeps the narrative flowing, only breaking when the story demands it. If anyone was somehow losing interest in this series, this issue will surely pull them back in.

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