Lady Mechanika: The Devil in the Lake #4 // Review
She's being saved by the woman she came to save. Perfectly normal. Perfectly rational. At least they're both safe. However, safety comes in strange places at strange times. Particularly at the bottom of a large body of water on the other side of the planet. Safety comes in the form of danger in Lady Mechanika: The Devil in the Lake #4. The. writing team of Joe Benitez and M.M. Chen continues their tale of steampunk heroism in Russia with the aid of artist Siya Oum. The series concludes as major plot developments are delivered with a sharp sense of poise.
She was convinced that everyone had died and it was all her fault. This was really more a sense of panic than anything. Then there was a helpful hand fishing her out of the water. The woman belonging to that hand was rather surprised to find that the one she was saving was British...and a woman as well. Not much of a surprise that someone would come for her, though. She figured that the university would likely have sent SOMEONE looking for her as she had been missing for quite some time. Both women are relatively safe. Getting back home? That’s going to be another matter altogether.
With all of the plot elements fully revealed, the current story ends up being a deligthful fusion between various elements of sci-fi and horror fantasy the feel like a clever patchwork of various elements. The overall saga of Lady Mechanika continues as things progress. It's a bit of a strange fusion, though. It's difficult to really feel exactly where to be as a reader with respect to it. It's not really a sense of pure action or pure adventure or pure drama, and the genres mix in a way, making it kind of difficult to really know how to embrace. That being said, it's still a lot of fun.
Oum manages to mix quite a few different things in the exploration of the adventure. The creature at the heart of this series ends up being very complicated on a whole bunch of different levels. It's actually a lot of fun to see the same entity shown from a number of different angles. The kawaii version of the sea monster, and the full reality of it beneath the sea end up being kind of a fun contest, but nevertheless managers to be quite vivid fusion between different aspects of personality. What essential of the sea monster. Very fun stuff.
The adventure continues. Each series seems to be building quite delightfully on the one before it. Really remarkably good execution of that style of serialized storytelling for comic book format. It's a format that doesn't always work really well. However, with this particular character, it's perfect extension, her and her adventures. Not too much carried over from one series to the next, but there's just enough of a progression to give one the feeling of character development series. It's a really nice progression.
