Fale is in Zone One. He’s engaging in a knife fight at the end of the world. It’s not pretty. Things are going to get a whole lot more ugly before he can rescue the girl. He’s determined to do so. He’s doing his job. His only way out of the zone is with her in Almighty #5. Writer/artist Edward Laroche concludes his post-apocalyptic action series in an issue that echoes through the shadows of so many other post-apocalyptic action stories. Colorist Brad Simpson lends grit and wash to the visuals that occasionally manage a kind of beauty.

There are a couple of ravens sitting on a wire watching the knife fight. They’re not the only ones. Fale is a brutal guy, but is he brutal enough to survive the fight so that he can rescue Del? The Golden State motorcycle gang isn’t going to let him pass even if he DOES win the fight. It’s okay: Fale may be a killer, but he’s got something worth fighting for. That may not be enough if he gets beyond the gang. Zone One is a pretty ugly place. There’s no telling what horrors Del might be suffering from deeper in the zone. 

Laroche has had a pretty steady rhythm with Fale and Del. He limits the action to what’s clearly visible on the page. Any writer would be tempted to go SO MUCH deeper into the backstory and origins of a post-apocalyptic world, but Laroche keeps it simple so that the entire thrust of the conflict can rest between Fale, Del, and those that stand in their way. It works on a very clean and simplistic level, but it lacks a lot of resonance beyond the surface. The minimalist approach to the story keeps it from digging all that far into a reader’s mind the way the best post-apocalyptic fiction should.

Laroche is clever enough with the action on the page to give much of the issue to a knife fight at the end of the world, punctuated by the striking gazes of a couple of ravens. Simpson’s colors for the fight feel deeply saturated in very,  very dark reds. It looks good, but the action feels stiff and awkward. Once Laroche works his way through the knife fight, there ARE some vague hints of compelling horror and a few moments of genuine drama. It’s all kind of satisfying in its own way.

The promotional copy for the fifth issue suggests that this is the end of the first volume of the series. Laroche provides some sense of conflict that could be carried into a second series, but he would have to find a way to conjure some depth out of all the awkward, exhausted, post-apocalyptic surface tension if he’s going to conjure much more than a restless insomniac vision of life after the fall of civilization. There needs to be more in and within the panels if Almighty is going to bring a bit more weight to the comics rack.

Grade: C+