The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh #4 – The End of Act 2!

The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh #4 (of 4) (Boom! – Waid / Oosterveer)

Mark Waid’s hit new original series comes to it’s final conclusion as Catherine’s terminal condition finally reaches critical mass! With the clock ticking down to the inevitable, what sort of deal with the devil will Doyle have to make for Catherine’s soul? Find out in this thrilling end to the critically acclaimed series!

What can I tell you, I’m in the middle of a Mark Waid love-fest.  Between The Incredibles, The Unknown and the one-two punch of Incorruptible / Irredeemable, Mr Waid has allowed this aging fanboy to put aside the gloomy thoughts of lame cross-overs and rising book prices and just bask in remembering what turned me onto comics in the first place… a great story.  Thank you Mark.

Issue four of the second series of The Unknown completes the act.   The mystery of the murders of Mountain Oak are solved and the curse is broken.   Adriana’s true form is revealed.  Both Catherine and Doyle get schooled on the secrets of their own existence.  It laid out how this second series was tied into the first (proving it to be a sequel rather than just another story that happened later), and foreshadows the big baddie for the third (and final?) series.  With this issue Mark Waid masterfully shows that he is a story teller first and industry icon second.   Minck Oosterveer continues to give his brilliant interiors giving depth and emotion to a very action-filled supernatural mystery.

After spreading my lovefest, I do want to send out a slight warning / commentary about The Unknown series, if you haven’t read them – they are not what you expect.  Readers have gone in thinking this was either a deeply detailed mystery suspense or sort of a Ghostbusters-like story.  While both are true, it’s more of a synthesis with a lot of dark supernatural overtones thrown in.  If you imagine a very brooding (but non-Batman) Bruce Wayne and Gregory House teamed up to do a demonic exorcism, you might have a glimpse of what Mark Waid is putting together here.

You can pick this issue up coming this Wednesday, and if you are lucky your local independently-owned comic shop may still have the first three issues for you too!

Issue Grade: A

Series Grade: A-

Please follow and like us: