Dead Romans #4 // Review
Honoria and Regulus are on a misty path through the woods when they encounter the horrific sight of a dead man roped up with limbs pulled in all directions. What appears to be the head of a dead stag covers the poor corpse. The Germans love their sacrifices. Honoria gazes up at it sternly. “They’re beasts,” she says. The two venture further into the mist-veiled woods at night in Dead Romans #4. Writer Fred Kennedy journeys further into a slowly growing ancient empire that is cast onto the page by artist Nick Marinkovich. Color shifts slowly across the page courtesy of José Villarrubia. The moody brutality of ancient war crawls compellingly through another stylish issue.
Honoria had an affair with a German prince. She had been assigned to follow him. She learned from him. She was to watch him. She planned to do so until he proved himself disloyal to Rome. At first, he was just a barbarian. Nothing more. It was boring until she started falling in love. Now, her heart is cast into uncertainty as she and Regulus travel through the muck of the swamp. So, she tells him the story of her past. Meanwhile, Roman soldiers are making their way through the swamp as well. There’s a funeral pyre there that could foreshadow something dark.
Kennedy opens the issue with a few pages of speechless combat. The extended brutality in the misty swamp serves as a bestial opening to an issue that explores some deeper emotional aspects of life in an ancient empire. Matters of ambition mix with matters of the heart in a world where lives can quickly come to an end only to be put on display as a warning to any who would come looking for trouble. It’s grim stuff that Kennedy is exploring, but there’s a passion about it all that feels powerful enough to keep the pages turning through the misty darkness.
Marinkovich manages to keep the brutality of war at a distance from the panel without compromising the horrific nature of battle and blood in the age of the Roman Empire. Honoria looks grimly heroic as she stalks through the swamp with Regulus. The entire issue seems to be haunting the night. Villarrubia finds a way to keep it all firmly shadowed without immersing page and panel in a totally impenetrable darkness. It’s a delicate balance that still manages to feel strikingly dynamic.
Kennedy could be exploring deeper territory with the issue given the matters of the heart that he’s covering in the fourth issue of the series, but he’s wise to let the deeper resonance of the theme remain shrouded in the fog, just out of reach of the central conflicts. The central conflict feels more at home in the center of the panel than deeper concerns that rest just outside the spoken dialogue. Sometimes the language just isn’t dark enough, and the ugliest thing you can write about war can only be delivered by the artist.
