Dark Horse’s Death Head miniseries comes to its sixth and final issue. Is it good?
Death Head #6 (Dark Horse Comics)
The Plot
- Okay, this is normally where I start making veiled bullet point references to the plot, but what the heck is going on? The last issue ended with Maggie holding Lena, who’d just been stabbed by a plague doctor outside on the sidewalk. This issue starts with Maggie holding Lena inside the house…along with the plague doctor and the rest of her family (minus dad) standing around her. I swear, this series kills as many panel sequences as it does characters.
- Dad is one heck of a Portal master.
- Well that escalated quickly…
- Gotta have human heads in jars, because horror.
- Good old Dad, still busting out the one-liners.
- Okay, it should be clear by now that I didn’t enjoy this issue very much, but Maggie’s Head Butt of Doom might be the coolest thing ever.
- Imbued with the power of deus ex machina, it’s Rosie to the rescue! (Man, why couldn’t she just do that before when the kid was in trouble?).
- And once again, Dad thinks he’s in a comedy.
- ‘KILL IT WITH FIRE’ is always the way to go.
- Not sure if that ending was unsettling, confounding, or both.
Is It Good?
As good as the art is in this issue, panel-sequencing problems continue plague the series to the very end (pun intended). Artist Joanna Estep makes up for it with some cool visuals (see: Head Butt of Doom), but it’s not enough to rescue the story.
Maybe the Kellers plan on revisiting Death Head at some point in the future, but even if they do, this first volume leaves way too many dangling plot threads. That makes the ending, which is supposed to be chilling, end up feeling hollow. Not helping matters is the somewhat light-hearted tone the family occasionally took during their ordeal. I get that we’re supposed to see them coming together through a crisis, but it doesn’t mesh with what we’ve seen from them leading up to this point.
I will admit that the ending has me intrigued at the possibility of a sequel, but not desperate for it. I’d rather see this creative team build on the flashes of great talent they displayed with a fresh start on a new project.
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