Scout's Honor #4 // Review
Scout’s Honor #4 is written by David Pepose, drawn by Luca Casalanguida, colored by Matt Milla, and lettered by Carlos M. Mangual. Scout’s Honor #4 picks up where the previous issue left off, with Kit being sentenced to death as a traitor to the Ranger Scouts.
Last issue, Kit broke into the Eagle’s Nest, seeking answers to her questions about the Ranger Scouts. But what she found not only wholly shattered her belief in the Scouts as an institution, it got her branded as a traitor. Scout’s Honor #4 begins when the Scoutmaster confronts Kit, both for breaking into the Eagle’s Nest, a traitorous offense, but also for breaking the Third Law, being a girl. And in a final blow to her faith in the Ranger Scouts, Kit receives confirmation that the Scouts sell weapons to the Highwaymen to keep the general populace terrified and looking to the Scouts for safety. While Kit escapes with Weblo, the robot her father fixed up, she’s lost everything she believed in.
Prior to Scout’s Honor #4, Kit’s faith in the Ranger Scouts was already shaken, but this eradicated it. Pepose writes Kit as having a crisis of faith. She no longer trusts the Ranger Scouts as an institution. They’ve let her down too many times, and they haven’t truly been following the Seven Laws created by Doctor Jefferson Hancock. But despite her disillusionment with the Scouts, Pepose makes it clear that Kit still believes in the Seven Laws and has great respect for them and Doctor Jefferson Hancock. Her faith is the only thing keeping Kit going, giving her hope for a better future.
Casalanguida continues to create beautiful but also terrifying art. There’s a reason the Scoutmaster believes that Kit is as good as dead in The Badlands: there’s the harsh territory, the unforgiving weather, and monstrous creatures. Kit barely enters the Badlands before being attacked by a Hellspider. Casalanguida’s design sure looks like what you would expect something called a Hellspider to look like. Seriously, I wouldn’t even say I’m usually scared of spiders, but the Hellspider is horrifying.
The badlands might be a wasteland, but Milla makes them come alive through vivid colors, as Kit goes through hell, facing acid rain, lightning-caused explosions, and her fight with a Hellspider. Milla’s colors pair perfectly with Mangual’s dynamic sound effects. Even if there wasn’t lightning illustrated in the background, you could tell exactly what was happening based on the sound effects because they perfectly represent the sound.
Scout’s Honor #4 is the culmination of all of Kit’s character development, of all the shit she’s been put through. At this point, she’s lost everything; her father, her best friend, the organization to which she dedicated her entire life. It’s forced her to look within herself, to really and figure out why she wants to keep on living, what she’s living for. And with beautiful art to back up this phenomenal story, Scout’s Honor #4 is the best issue of the series thus far.
