Ernest Hemingway may now be literal God, but Jude still needs to be rescued. So it’s basically your average day in Joshua Hale Fialkov and Gabo’s afterlife. Read on for our review of “Exodus: The Life After” #4 but be warned, there are some spoilers.
Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov
Illustrated Gabo
The Lord Himself has taken a leave of absence, and put Ernest Hemingway in charge. Will he be a righteous god or a righteous jerk?
With so many comic books coming out on a weekly basis, the terms underrated and overlooked can be applied to a lot of titles. However, rarely does this truly apply to every single underselling title. That’s not the case with “The Life After.” Gabo and Joshua Hale Fialkov’s Oni Press series is wickedly funny and a really fresh take on the afterlife with characters you’re instantly attached to. “Exodus” is the second half of the series after the major reset button that was hit by Nettie when she decapitated Jude, and it’s been even better than the earlier issues of the series because of how much knowledge the characters now have.
“Exodus: The Life After” #4 begins with the big shake up of Ernest Hemingway, basically, becoming God. The Potato God has shown Hemingway the way of the universe and now he must deal with his new role alongside Nettie and Essie. Meanwhile, Nettie and Essie still want to save Jude and try to convince him to help them out. Instead, Hemingway decides to investigate his new domain and that leads to even more trouble for him.
“Exodus: The Life After” #4 is a fast moving issue, but it kind of needs to be. I’m unsure how long this series is planned for, but after the reset button was hit it was time to bring things back to a faster pace. We’ve got some great answers, and now that Jude is back in the fold things are getting ready to heat up, but that doesn’t mean the heavy emotional drama is gone. Nettie and Essie have a great moment together that I won’t ruin here, but it’s important for the series going forward and it feels like the culmination of so much they’ve been through. In general, that’s been the feeling of “Exodus” and in an industry full of reboots, it’s a welcome change of pace to read something that’s headed to an ending and giving a couple of years of storytelling a purpose.
What’s so fun about this issue is how Fialkov and Gabo continue to play around with our preconceived notions of the afterlife. “Exodus: The Life After” #4 gets more into the randomness of the afterlife as illustrated perfectly by the way Gabo creates some of the “floors” of this world and the scattered TV screens. Ernest Hemingway, of all people, is given the power to control what happens here. If that’s not enough to demonstrate how wild this afterlife is, then I don’t know what is.
What’s interesting about “Exodus: The Life After” #4 is how it kind of continues to allow Essie and Hemingway to steal the spotlight. They both went from these strong supporting characters to almost more compelling than Jude at Nettie at this point. In fact, I’ve found myself less and less invested in Jude and more invested in this world and all of the other characters. This is an issue that’s been building for a while, but the overall story is so strong that it hasn’t been a huge concern. With the story getting closer to it’s end, I do worry that Jude might not be salvageable as a lead.
Gabo’s art has really gotten stronger as the series has gone on. First off, the scope of some of these panels has hit an all time level of epic. Gabo isn’t an artist who settles for flat backgrounds – he makes the entire afterlife feel like a character in the story. There’s a beautiful double page spread that, again, without spoiling events, illustrates a whole lot of history and even if this is mostly put together digitally, the scope of it is gorgeous. Gabo not only hones in on some heavy emotional stuff with this spread but it also acts as a great transition.
Continued belowThe characters themselves are equally great to look at and inspect. There’s a lot of detailing on clothing but what stands out this issue is the way Hemingway is drawn. He’s been through a lot over the course of this series and it’s starting to show. The once laid back writer is more world weary and he’s finally been shocked by something with the new power he’s been granted. That gives way to curiosity and then panic and Gabo is able to transition through this very nicely. His own color work is also very strong. There really isn’t a set color look to “Exodus: The Life After”. Instead, Gabo is really focused on each scene as a separate thing and the colors are always surprising and beautiful.
“Exodus: The Life After” #4 is another solid entry for this series and I really wish more people were reading it. There’s a lot of world building taking place with some very solid character work and it has a killer sense of humor.
Final Verdict: 7.8 – The Potato God giveth and the Potato God taketh from Hemingway. It’s another great issue for a series that should have a bigger audience.
