East of West vol. 3

This volume of Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta’s sci-fi western features a lot of things going from bad to worse.  Xiaolan seeks to stir things up at a meeting of the heads of nations, and two people wind up dead by treachery not of her own design.  Meanwhile, her (ex?) husband Death takes it to the ranger who robbed him of the information he needed to track down his missing son.  At the same time, his companions Wolf and Crow have to deal with the fallout of the death of the former’s father as demons from the spirit world threaten to invade the physical one.  Then you’ve got Death’s son who is forced to take on the three remaining horsemen with nothing but his wits and Balloon, his robotic AI companion.  Even if the boy does survive the experience, the question remains about whether or not Balloon has his best interests at heart.

All of this takes us further down into the world that these two have created, in often thrilling fashion.  The first shots of war are fired in this volume and act as a signal that things are going to kick into a higher gear in short order.  Plenty of great verbal jousting is also on display as the heads of each nation try to avert the looming crisis, which crumples when actual violence rears its head at the meeting.  Seeing the fighting skills and tragedy of Death’s son, who takes the name of Babylon, are another impressive sight to behold even if they herald tragedy.  Though all of these elements result in a great read, I’m also left wishing that Hickman would slow down the pace just a bit to let some of these developments breathe.  The book’s breakneck pace means that events like Wolf’s encounter with the spirit world, or Archibald Chamberlain’s latest betrayal don’t resonate in a way that’s commensurate with their importance.  It’s still easy to grasp why these events matter, particularly when you’ve got someone like Dragotta who can do big full-page fistfights as easily as nine-panel conversations on hand to illustrate them.  These are ultimately minor issues, as I still feel very involved in watching this world be driven into ruin by way of its very talented creators.