I’m going to say one biased thing real quick; the many panels without dialogue that just show Abe’s reactions make this series worth “reading”. I’m ninety percent sure that if you never had to read a single word and all language was reactionary body language, it would still work. Maybe it’s because of how long I’ve been following this character, or maybe I have just fallen in love with the universe that Mike Mignola has created. I don’t know. I do know that it doesn’t seem fair that five years have gone by and Mike Mignola and Scott Allie have been telling the same story that still seems to be working somehow. There really isn’t much story being told here, though.

Abe is still hanging out with the girl that he met in the Arizona desert (along with her group of friends) and they don’t really seem to have any real direction or leadership. At least he’s not wandering alone for a change. But in this issue it turns out that they have a single purpose, to gather water. Sounds simple enough. It does tend to get rather hot in the desert. While out, they run into trouble as a group of those four-legged gray-skinned monsters appear over a cliff and charge after them. They attempt to escape and lead them to the Phoenix border where a group of militia has been entrusted with keeping monsters out of the city. It doesn’t really need to be said, but at this point all hell breaks loose.

The artwork in this series has really been top-notch. It’s definitely one of the reasons that it could have no dialogue and it would still be one of the strongest out there. Sebastian Fiumara’s art in this particular issue really grabbed the bulk of my attention because of his brilliant use of shading. In fact, he has done that exceptionally well through this entire arc. I mostly like how I could feel the actual emotions on Abe’s face during the course of this story. He also has the ability to make his characters have a simplistic look, but if you were to spend an extra second or two on each panel you would be able to see that there is nothing simple about them. Just look at the first panel of the first page.

So far, I like Abe Sapien, but it’s mostly just Abe wandering around “trying to figure things out”. I don’t really know how much longer this creative team can keep that interesting. I can tell that these events are eventually going to lead up to something that will kick our butts, but I’m getting a little restless here. I’m always blown away every time each one of Mignola’s series reaches its climax, but I guess I’ve grown a little more paranoid as I read more. I’ve been disappointed by “sure things” one too many times. However, even though I have yet to be disappointed by anything that Mike Mignola has attached to his name, I am still hesitant to sing the praises just yet.

Score 3/5

Writer: Mike Mignola & Scott Allie Artist: Sebastian Fiumara Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 11/13/13