Gideon Falls, Volume 5: Wicked Worlds: 08/21/21

Gideon Falls, Volume 5: Wicked Worlds by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino (Illustrator) is the penultimate volume. This is the volume that begins the transition to the end state. It's the point where the situation is at its most dire.

At the end of The Pentoculus the Black Barn was destroyed. What should have been an ending is actually a beginning. It's the point where the darkness is released and the worlds begin to collapse. All those Gideon Falls are pancaking into one chaotic realm of darkness and destruction.

With the traveller's status downgraded in the previous book to privileged, they are ironically more vulnerable to the effects of the darkness. In this volume the team begins to lose some of their own. This is a volume (or originally five issues) of running to stay in place.

When there is a multi-issue show down with the big bad, whomever they may be, I often find myself bored by the climax. It becomes such an overwhelming amount of action and confrontation that the entirety of the situation loses meaning.

While I'm supposed to be worried for the heroes and scared by the darkness and the bugs, I'm not. My reaction is more: oh lookie, more bugs. Oh lookie, he's lost. Oh well. Too bad.

All of this mayhem, though, is another progression on the Road Narrative Spectrum.

The remaining heroes are still privileged (00). They are still the ones who are destined to fight the final battle. Their destination is home (66). Home here is a fixed, stable, Gideon Falls. Their route is the maze (CC) which is represented through the ever changing landscape as the dimensions crash into each other.

The sixth book is The End and released in April.

Four stars

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