Something is Killing the Children #31 // Review
Jimmy didn’t make it. Owen doesn’t know it until he asks. He could have figured it out, though. Jimmy was attacked by something awful. Now, they’re asking him about it. They need to know as much as possible about the horror that attacked him to figure out how to deal with it. There’s a woman outside the police station who sees the artist’s rendering of the killer and loses it big time. This isn’t the beginning, but it IS the beginning of Something is Killing the Children #31. Writer James Tynion IV continues his saga with artist Werther Dell’Edera and colorist Miquel Muerto.
The killer in question was wearing a bandanna over her face that had fangs printed on it. There’s magic. Dark magic. It’s how they transform. The murderer in question is Erica. There’s real anger and frustration over this. A mirror is shattered in a bathroom. Elsewhere, Gabi is being told to go in the water. There’s a perfectly good reason for this that ISN’T “because I said so,” but that’s the first reason she gets. They’re hunting a monster, and they need to manipulate Gabi’s temperature to do so. So, there really IS a good reason for it.
Tynion intricately weaves horror with drama and comedy in a way that feels very thematically immersive. The author plays on so many different forms of emotion that the world of the story feels as real as the world on this side of the comics page. That's not a really easy thing to do given the fact that it's essentially about a group of people fighting monsters. Tynion’s work with the ensemble goes a long way towards maintaining a vivid reality of the series in a big way. The detailed work Tynion does in delivering the drama on all levels does a particularly good job of drawing the reader to the characters emotionally in issue #31.
Dell’Edera and Muerto are largely working with drama and tension in the 31st issue. There's a lot of aggression that's being set up over the course of the issue. The tension plays out in some pretty idyllic places. There's such peace in the surrounding area. Deserts and suburban backyards and that sort of thing. Individual characters can lash out from inner turmoil here and there...Dell’Edera is brilliant at bringing that drama across, but the surrounding peace and apparent tranquility of that world around them creates a haunting stillness for the drama to thrash about in.
The monster they're facing now is something that challenges them quite a lot. And there's a deep thematic complexity about it. They hunt monsters. They feel like monsters. Now, they’re facing a monster that looks and moves like them, and they wonder just how far the darkness moves in and within them. The thirty-first issue explores some of that around the edges of everything in a way that cleverly increases the overall horror of the story.
