Love Everlasting vol. 3

In the story of Joan Petersen and her quest for true love, there’s one clear villain here:  The Cowboy.  I mean, how else are we supposed to feel about this masked marauder who shows up whenever it looks like she’s found a man to love and then shoots her dead.  Seems pretty clear cut to me.  Which means it’s the right time to flip the script as we finally get his side of the story with this volume and it turns out he’s got it almost as bad as Joan herself in this story.  The Cowboy loves her too and the only way he can be near her is to keep shooting her over, and over again all at the behest of the person who’s the real villain of “Love Everlasting.”

After stringing us along throughout the entirety of vol. 2 and then taking nearly two years to deliver the collected edition of this title’s third arc, I was hoping that writer Tom King and artist Elsa Charretier were ready to wow us with this third volume.  That doesn’t happen here as the results are mostly, “Ok.  Alright.”  I do appreciate the insight that the creators provide into The Cowboy as they make him into a proper character instead of a plot device over the course of this volume.  They also flesh out the world and the nature of the scenarios that Joan keeps finding herself put through.  Charretier’s art continues to be quite pleasing to the eye as well.

It’s just that after three volumes this series still hasn’t gripped me.  This one didn’t try my patience like the last one did, but it provides precious little payoff to the ongoing mysteries and conflicts it has set up.  Sure, Joan reaches something resembling a breakthrough at the end of the volume, but there’s no indication as to what it actually means for the story going forward.  Which is something that won’t be happening for a while as no new issues have been solicited and vol. 3 ends with “To be continued, in a little while…”  I appreciate that it shows King and Charretier’s commitment to this series even as my hope that it will deliver in the end continues to erode.