Love Everlasting #3 // Review
Everything that begins must end. Nothing lasts forever. What happens...if it’s forced to, though? Writer Tom King continues an exploration of this in the romance genre as he guides his protagonist through the latest chapter of Love Everlasting. The story of a woman trapped in an endless series of romance stories is passionately brought to the page by artist Elsa Charretier and colorist Matt Hollingsworth. The ongoing format might be a bit difficult to maintain while keeping it fresh, but the series continues to be unique and fascinating in its third outing.
This time Joan is a librarian somewhere in the mid-20th century. She’s watching a couple of high school kids fall in love with each other. There’s a longing for the romance she can never have, but there’s also a deeper darkness that seems to suggest a world that she is desperately trying to be okay with. She wants to give the girl in the romance some kind of advice, but will it be enough in a world of unending repetition? And what happens when the man in the mask shows up again? Does blood need to be spilled once more by the arrival of the final panel?
King’s premise was remarkably tight and provocative in its first issue. The steady dose of the same woman experiencing three similar romances in three completely different settings felt like it was really going somewhere. The second issue shifted the narrative into a longer, more nuanced look at the nature of romance in the genre. With the format and the world of the series firmly established by the time of the third issue, Love Everlasting loses some of its novelty. What it lacks in novelty, it more than makes up for in heart. King has built up an appealingly sympathetic character at the center of the narrative. Joan’s emotional complexity has come quite a long way over the course of the first couple of chapters.
The visual world of Love Everlasting is sharp and stylish. Charretier frames the drama beautifully. The detail in the art is breathtakingly minimal. A few shapes juxtaposed just right turns into an impressively complex portrait of a woman’s inner psyche. Hollingsworth’s colors add just enough atmosphere to the plot to give a sense of time and place. Some of the variations in hue and contrast are remarkably nuanced.
There is an appeal to Love Everlasting as an ongoing series, but it’s going to be a bit of a challenge to keep everything going as Joan deals with problems from life to life and setting to setting. Image continues to present the old Substack end of the series for now. It will be interesting to see how long it will take it moving forward into new issues. King and Charretier have a compelling rhythm going with the series thus far. It will remain to be seen if they can maintain the intrigue moving forward.
