Within the medium of comics, no one gets death as deftly as sequential art does. Books, can portray a death quite convincingly, describing every detail, as if you were in the room. Movies and tv shows, do it well too, as they show the viewer visually and sometimes not, what occurs. As the death of a beloved character, can make the audience gasp or cheer.

This last season of Game Of Thrones, saw the death of Littlefinger, a villain within the books and the TV show, who seemingly was behind every sea change within Westeros. Then in the recent storyline of Detective Comics, saw the death of Clayface, a once hated but now redeemed character, that divides Bat Family. Either way, much like in life, when one person is so attached to other’s lives, their fatality can be devastating. In this newest volume of The 99, every wielder of the Noor stones face a sacrifice or a demise of someone close.

Dr. Ramzi,  at the beginning of the book, asks every member what personal sacrifice each undertook before they discovered their powers. One of the wielders talks about how each got sold in to child slavery but got turned into a cold-blooded killer and receives the Noor stones this way. Another finds one of the heroes finding his powers through being bullied and almost killing someone. By book’s end, the giving up of something or someone in this book, shows the true measure of a hero.

Overall, this feels like the “After School Special” of the series, which can be good, but this team has told better stories. Stuart Moore and Fabian Nicieza feels seral in this book, which is not exemplary of the series. The art by the different artists is the one consistency from the rest of the series that is in this volume. Altogether, the series has done better than this volume, skip this one and find the rest.

Story: Stuart Moore and Fabian Nicieza
Art: Ron Wagner, Joe Rubinstein, Paco Diaz, Chris Schons, Steven Yeowell, Kevin Kobasic, Don Hudson, Mark Buckingham and Steve Buccelato
Story: 5.0 Art: 8.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read