Faith vs. “THE FAITHLESS” – The final battle!

Framed for a crime, held prisoner by a team of her greatest enemies, and quickly running out of time, Faith must confront the truth of her first true defeat! But has victory truly come to The Faithless – a revenge-obsessed squad of malicious malcontents – or will Los Angeles’ soaring protector give them a run for their money first?

From the Hollywood Hills to the Santa Monica Pier, L.A. is about to witness the ultimate beat-down between good and evil…and when the final page arrives, you’ll be saying, “What the frack?!”

Yeah, I certainly did say that at the end of the issue. But not because it was a good comic, but rather because it felt like a hastily written phoned-in issue ox that had specific boxes to check in order to wrap the story up. There wasn’t a whole lot of cohesion to the finale of a story that has, honestly, struggled to live up to the brilliance exhibited earlier in the series.

Although The Faithless arc as a whole has been hovering on the fence between worth-reading and not-really-worth-reading-but-it’s-not-horrible this issue falls onto the wrong side of the fence, and by doing so it drags the arc as a whole down. Where previous issues have struggled, they have usually been saved by some subtle (and some less than subtle) moments of humour where writer Jody Houser‘s tongue has been stuff firmly in her cheek during sequences that will make you nod in admiration as she takes a sly potshot at comic book  tropes. Unfortunately, and maybe this is only me, I felt those moments fell flat this issue.

This is the first issue in both the miniseries and the ongoing where we don’t see Marguerite Sauvage’s fantasy sequences, and while I miss her art from the comic, those sequences wouldn’t make sense in this issue – and by virtue of her absence one of my strongest (and utterly unfair) criticisms of Joe Eisma‘s art is no longer a concern. While not everyone will agree, Eisma’s style was just close enough to Sauvage’s that when they were coloured by Andrew Dalhouse it made it just hard enough differentiate between the two. This issue allows Eisma to stand alone, and he’s solid here. His pacing and visual story telling are the highlight of the issue, but he never quite reaches the “buy it just for the art” level that would help me justify my purchase on Wednesday.

Yes, I am one of those collectors who will still buy this comic because it’s not horrible. It’s just not as good as previous issues.

If you’ve heard good things about Faith and you want to check the series out, then start with either of the first issues from the mini or this series. Just don’t start here, because the most exciting thing about this issue was the preview text.

And it grieves me to say that about one of my favourite series.

Story: Jody Houser Art: Joe Eisma Color: Andrew Dalhouse
Story: 6.0 Art: 8.0 Overall: 6.0 Recommendation: Read if you’ve come this far

Valiant provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review.