Writers: Joe Hill
Artist: Leomacs
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Deron Bennet
Editors: Mark Doyle & Amedeo Turturro
Release Date: December 18th, 2019
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Baskets: June is visiting her college boyfriend on an island in Maine. Liam's last day as a summer cop ended at 5 pm, and just before dinner at the sheriff's house, three inmates escape. The sheriff insists that Liam still goes to his house to have dinner with his wife and son, and he'd feel safer with him there anyways with fugitives on the loose. Eventually, the wife and son are called away, and it's just Liam and April in the house during a big storm. The fugitives break into the house, and while June hides they cut off Liam's finger looking for information. After two of the fugitives leave with Liam, June finds herself alone with one of them... and a huge Norse ax which she uses to chop off his head. But is he dead? Nope! His head is still alive and very aware of what's going on.
Now, with the head in a basket, they sit in a gazebo and talk. Of course, the bodiless guy, whose name is Sal, is scared but he can't help himself from flipping out on her and calling her a bitch every once in awhile and then apologizing because he's her only hope. They both wonder if this is real or not, and June cuts her forearm with the ax to make sure. Yup, real pain, and real blood.
Sal thinks, "what if it's like losing a thumb?" If you get to a doctor quick enough they can sew it back on. But uh-oh! His body was swept out to sea! What would have happened if his head went into the water? He wouldn't drown because he's not breathing now, so he'd still be alive while getting picked apart by crabs. Back and forth they talk, and at one point she picks up his head and pulls his nose and pulls on his mouth because he's being a turd.
She's finally able to get what they were looking for from Liam: money. The girl who killed herself by jumping off the bridge had around $10,000 in her backpack and Liam took it before the sheriff showed up. Sal claims that he and other inmates were cleaning up around the river when it happened and witnessed it, and they saw him take the money. I'm not buying it. I still think the real fugitives are dead and these are the sheriff's deputies (read my theory on what's happening in the issue #2 review). June isn't buying it either because Liam claimed he was dead broke. She rips the American flag off of the post on the gazebo and uses it to cover Sal's head in the basket.
Rather than stay at the house (those other fugitives could come back), June decides to hit the road. They looted the gun safe (I don't think they did, I think the sheriff cleared them out ahead of time so Liam wouldn't have any defense) so all she has for a weapon is the ax, and all of the cars are gone so she has to walk. Eventually, Mr. Hamilton from the Hamilton Orchards pulls up in his pickup drinking a big ole' bottle of booze. She puts the basket in the bed of the truck and they head to the police station. I knew something wasn't right because Hamilton is wearing the raincoat that June is wearing on the first few pages of the first issue. And something is not right! But you'll have to read the issue to find out what.
Bits and Pieces
There's great interaction between June and Sal throughout the issue. How he goes from scared to angry back to scared, while she is sorry for what she did but not intimidated by him, makes for a very entertaining conversation. And that makes up for the lack of progression. Yeah, you do learn a little bit more about stuff going on but the plot still treads water until the very end when something pretty big happens. Still, I very much enjoyed the book while I was reading it and think it's the best issue of the 3 so far. And the art style fits the story being told well.
8.3/10
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