The Curse of Brimstone #4 Review

Filled to the Brimstone 

Storytellers: Eduardo Pansica and Justin Jordan
Art by: Eduardo Pansica, Julio Ferreira, Rain Beredo, and Wes Abbott
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 4, 2018

I forget about the existence of this book on such a regular basis that I'm shocked I read it for this review. Last we see Joe and Annie, they defeated the Salesman and began a trek across the country where they plan to save other towns in the Salesman's ledger. Decent premise going forward, but does it hold up? Continue on to find out.


As the book opens, we meet this giant monster that hunts this apparently innocent man. It's a big husk of grey goo, body parts, and skulls. It's a pretty generic and unfrightening opening and I'm not compelled by it whatsoever. We move on to Joe and Annie, who are trying to decipher the ledger. They're making their way to one of the town's on the list and they discover that it may have pulled an Alderaan; it's not there anymore, despite what the GPS says. Then they meet a man who knows so much more than Joe ever did about his curse...

I was under the assumption the first three issues were meant to introduce the characters, the world, the antagonist, and the book would go on from there. Instead Justin Jordan is throwing even more concepts at us, like the idea that Brimstone is essentially falling further into the control of the Salesman, now the Agent. 

The character that Joe and Annie meet, Enoch, is very generic and plain and just feels like a vessel for more exposition. And this Enoch has such an impossibly dumb power. He can absorb powers from other Agent demons like Brimstone; how does that make any sense? I thought that the Agents gave people powers to destroy towns. How does the power of absorption destroy an entire town? Jordan may answer these questions down the line, but they really drag the issue down.

Based on the solicits, Philip Tan is still doing the rest of this series but it seems he needed a break. I just saw online that he and his wife recently had a baby, so congratulations to them! Eduardo Pansica jumps on for this issue and I think this style is superior to Tan's. It's more grounded and the characters are more emotive, which is the kind of style I'm looking for in a story like this. The actions scenes with Brimstone look fantastic, and still remain the highlight of the book.

Bits and Pieces:

This book is fascinatingly devoid of character and charisma and I don't care for it at all. This issue wasn't terrible but it did bore me almost throughout. The art is a bit nicer to look at but the story lacks focus and compelling characters.

4/10