The First Shadow is on the rise. It's an entity of great evil that threatens to destroy everything. Kate and Cate are all that stands between it and the armageddon that it so craves. So they're going to need help from Hell, and a fast-food restaurant as writer Ian Boothby's tenth issue of Exorsisters prepares to enter the end of its current major story arc. Artist Gisèle Lagacé maintains the series's visual cuteness as a stark contrast to the darkness that crawls around the edges of the story. Colorist Pete Pantazis gives the visuals a simple radiance that adds to the story's comic horror atmosphere. 

Cate is meeting with the manager of a fast-food restaurant to gain the aid of a bunch of minor demons. Kate has gone to Hell to talk to Satan about helping out as well. And then there are the angels. And a slightly anthropomorphized fly with a sword. Will it be enough to defeat the all-consuming evil of the First Shadow? Probably. Still...given with the way that things have been going for them, it's hard to imagine The Exorsisters wrapping-up this adventure without making things really, really complicated for everyone involved. And y' know...the world is coming to an end, so even a small success is going to be a huge one, right? 

Cate and Kate are just...really, really fun. On the verge of a major show-down, they're all the more fun. Ian Boothby's usually snappy dialogue is particularly witty this issue. Subtlety creeps around the edges of the humor as bigger, more obvious jokes rest in the foreground. The peculiar appeal of Cate and Kate lies in Boohtby's rigorous dedication to keeping each of them in their respective corners without compromising the fact that they really are just different ends of the same person and, therefore, as close as a pair of people can be. It's a very cleverly-balanced dynamic.

Lagacé's art continues to cast to Cate and Kate's world in a very clean Archie-esque simplicity that makes Boothby's comedy feel all the more strange and strangely amplified. Cate and Kate come across as cool as they are cute as the tension is given firmer focus in and around the panels. A casual meeting between Kate and Satan feels almost like small talk between two acquaintances. Satan happens to be a woman the week that Kate has shown-up to ask for her help. Thanks to very clever color work by Pantazis, Satan's got green hair with light and dark highlights. She's got purple skin that has a flawless sheen. There's solid texture adding depth throughout the issue, but Pantazis's best work is with a suitably cute Satan.

An issue of Exorsisters goes by WAY too fast. The light comedy of the series would make it exceedingly easy to binge. Still, Boothby has a very sharp sense of classic comic book hero characterization about Cate and Kate that they feel much more substantial than the nine issues that they've appeared in thus far. The best characters in comics have a way of lingering between chapters in a way that intensifies their charm in the space between one installment and the next. Boothby's managed that charm with deft heart in nine issues of Exorsisters.

Grade: A