A young man dies. A war ends. The moon waxes full. And where does it all land? Well, it turns out that this ending is neither good nor bad. It just is.

Pretty Deadly #10 opens with Ginny at war with herself after being run through by Fear and War. Bones Bunny narrates to Butterfly as she comes to, watching from a distance in The World Garden. War does not keep Ginny down for long though. He just makes her angry.

Where the past couple of issues of Pretty Deadly have been all about action, this issue is about resolution. About necessary ends and times of peace. It’s easily the most emotional issue of the series so far, especially when we return to Verine and Clara by Sarah’s bedside. While it won’t last forever, the way Kelly Sue Deconnick writes this time of peace is moving and serene in a strange way. Like this is a well earned rest at the end of a hard road.

Emma Ríos and Jordie Bellaire knock it out of the park on art again, this time with less focus on brutality and more on ghostly images. The way the human reapers are drawn, dark and celestial against the soft moonlight or daylight of the trenches, is especially stark and lovely. Not as much though as when the Reaper of Courage stands with Fear and Grace to deliver Sarah to The World Garden as the sun rises. That might just be the most beautiful scene yet.

At the end of the book, Deconnick talks about how one must embrace their fear in order to be brave, and that seems like the overall arc of this particular story. It especially comes through in this issue, with the extra nail being a young nurse declaring “God bless the cowards” as she recovers the bodies of our fallen heroes. Pretty Deadly has always been a book about facing fears, but #10 is a reminder that courage does not exist without fear and to have the former, you must embrace the latter.

Between the beautiful art and the bittersweetly serene story, Pretty Deadly #10 is a masterful conclusion to a brutal and emotional arc. This final chapter of “The Bear” shows just how far the story has come and evolved, how the story has come to stand on it’s own in individual issues, and makes me even more excited for where the story will go when we meet up with Clara in the early days of Hollywood in the third arc.

Story: Kelly Sue Deconnick Art: Emma Ríos and Jordie Bellaire
Story: 9.0 Art: 10 Overall: 9.5 Recommendation: Buy

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review