4 out of 5

It is the rare artist that makes me okay with buying whole issues (or more) of just battle scenes. It helps – thanks, John Arcudi – to have an emotional, building story to set up those battle scenes, but even given that, I might be happy paying cover price for pages of James Harren – electrifyingly colored by Dave Stewart – drawing up a wendigo battling a monster, and a monster battling a zombie moose.

It probably doubly helps that the story being told here, which has Johann following in Abe’s footsteps in trying to track down Daimio, gives the character a fitting – bloody, thrilling, intense, and briefly brilliant – conclusion; people love Roger, and I get that, but Daimio was always the character with whom I wished we’d had more time, and the twist his storyline eventually took was completely unexpected and very, very sad. Same could be said for Rog, I suppose, but he was always a tragic character, whereas Daimio could’ve just been a stock tuff guy with a facial scar, but Arcudi kept giving us weird character details that eventually paid off as things went off the rails. And throughout this short series, there are a small handful of moments for each of the principles – Johann, the wendigo, Daimio – that makes it clear how much world-building John has done with his splinter of B.P.R.D.; little moments – quiet looks, offhand utterances – that feel, conversely, impactful.

That said, there is a dash of red shirt syndrome early on in this thing, with a lot of agents just grist for the monster mill, making some early downbeats with another Arcudi character (Carla Giarocco) feel a little cheap. A zombie moose soon comes tearing through to set things right with the world, though.