Baltimore: The Cult of the Red King #5 (cover) Reviews 

Mignolaversity: Baltimore: The Cult of the Red King #5 [Review]

By and | September 2nd, 2015
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Since the beginning, this series has had death looming over it. This final issue is not a happy one.

Cover by Ben Stenbeck

Written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Illustrated by Peter Bergting
Colors by Dave Stewart
Lettering by Clem Robins

Baltimore’s companions risk their lives for the steadfast tin soldier, but the Red King gains powerful new allies. Can the hero with no heart overcome the dark forces, or will it take a new sort of man to defeat the most ancient of evils?

Mark: For those of you that have been reading my reviews for each issue of “The Cult of the Red King”, you’ve had four of me blathering on. Fortunately for you, this will be a reprieve. Mike Romeo’s joining me for the review of the final issue to offer an alternative point of view and share his insights.

So Mike, before we get to the review, I just want to know what your background is with “Baltimore”.

Mike: I’ve followed the comic from the start. I loved the first big cycle of the series, and absolutely adored what Ben Stenbeck did with it. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I felt like the series wavered a bit when Berting came on. I’m not saying his art was inadequate, nothing could be farther from the truth, but something happened in the transition between cycles that made me feel like I lost the thread of the larger narrative. Maybe it was my reading of it, maybe it’s something others have experienced, I’m not sure. But all of that is behind us now. I think that this miniseries ended in a really strong way, leaving us on sure footing going forward.

Mark: Ah, so you haven’t read the novel? Then I’ll be very interested to hear your thoughts on certain story developments when we get to the spoiler-filled portion of this review.

So how are you finding the new group dynamic? It’s something that began in Peter Bergting’s arc “The Witch of Harju”, but here it comes to the foreground. For me, this is a change that reinvigorated the series. This is undoubtedly the best miniseries of “Baltimore” to date.

Mike: Hmm, I don’t think I can agree on the best to date claim. I’ll give you that it was a challenge, though! I mean, I really thought that the last three issues were stellar, but I found the start of the arc to be a little jumbled.

I’m all for teams and team-ups, so when I saw that Baltimore was shifting away from being a very ronin-esque feeling series I was pretty excited. Make no mistake, I love a good lone samurai tale, but when you make that character type dependent on others some interesting things can happen.

All of that said, I really wasn’t feeling this mini at the start. I would lose track of who was where, and thought that some of the Carthage interior scenes were in St. Petersburg. The same with the ship, I got mixed up over where it was, too. I hope I don’t sound like a dummy, but it took me a while to keep who was where sorted out. Maybe it’d read different in the collection, without a month between issues, I dunno.

But once the Temple was found, and we got a look at the witches’ doll room, I felt like I found the rhythm of the series. So while the team being split up seemed like a hindrance at first, it really came together at the end. It made me feel like they’re actually fighting a war, with multiple fronts and everything.

Mark: I got the first two issues at the same time, so maybe that affected my reading of it. For me, Dave Stewart’s colors were enough to orientate me.

It’s certainly been ramping up with each issue. I’ve enjoyed discovering the value of each character along the way, what they have to offer the group and what trouble they may spark in future. Judge Rigo has certainly shown himself to be a valuable ally, but there’s a danger with him too.

Continued below

And yeah, it does feel like a war now. The scale of the conflict is so much bigger than it was before.

As you said, Lord Baltimore is a bit of a ronin-esque character. In so many of the stories before this one, Baltimore became more intense, but for the most part stayed the same. For me, the biggest draw for this miniseries was seeing him genuinely change, not just once, but several times, for the better and the worse.

Mike: For sure. By the end of this issue I got the feeling that, despite now being surrounded by like-minded people with similar motivations, maybe Baltimore’s managed to grow even colder.

So some big stuff went down this issue, as we (maybe?) say goodbye to a character and launch ahead into whatever comes next. Spoiler time?

Mark: Oh yeah, spoiler time.

So, we knew it was coming right from the beginning; someone was going to die. And someone did. And then another. And another. Holy crap, Christopher Golden just started knocking down characters all over the place.

Mike: Yeah he did. Amongst the destruction left behind by this series, I found one death particularly unsettling, and it belongs to Demetrius. Seeing those ghouls sticking their fingers into his head really seemed like an unpleasant way to go. If you can even really say that he ‘went,’ you know? Seeing him turned into one of those things did not sit well, to say the least. Do you think we’ve seen the last of him?

Mark: I could see him returning in some form easily enough, but I think it’s more likely that’s the last we’ll see of him. Golden makes sure the fate of everyone that fights by Lord Baltimore’s side is a harsh one.

Man, Captain Aischros was my favorite character from the book, so to see him go was particularly tough. But the way he went was so right for the character. And then to find out his sacrifice didn’t even manage to save Hodge, another of my favorites. That was brutal.

And then there was the death of Childress, which had been telegraphed since the first issue. His is probably the death that has done the most damage to Lord Baltimore. All links to the man he was are gone now.

Mike: I know he’s known Baltimore for a while and all that, but everything that happened to Childress through this arc just made him so unlikeable that I didn’t really feel bad when he went. And I guess as an extension of that, I didn’t feel too bad for Baltimore, either. Looking back on the issue, it seems as if he was about to have a redeeming moment, but he turns right back to the witch that is responsible for every terrible thing that’s happened to him since they landed in St. Petersburg. Maybe if once Childress was returned to an unmanipulated state he and Baltimore had had a more substantial moment I’d feel differently.

Mark: Yeah, I said in one of my earlier reviews I’m not a fan of the evil demon seductress trope. Played straight, it’s a trope that doesn’t do characters any favors. It’s interesting you say it made Childress unlikeable though. Once he was under Zoya’s thrall, I read his every action as an extension of Zoya, so it served to make her unlikeable for me.

This is where I was really curious about your read of the story actually, because in the novel Captain Aischros, Dr. Rose, and Childress Jr. are the main characters. The story is told through them, so you get to know them very intimately. But in the comics, I feel like you barely know them. If you’ve only read the comics, you probably have a better sense of Simon Hodge, Judge Rigo, and Sofia Valk. Of the three from the book, Aischros has probably made the biggest impression. For comics-only readers, Childress and Rose are vaguely defined.

Interestingly, most of my feelings for what’s been done to Lord Baltimore stem from the conversation he had with Sofia in the first issue, and how that affected him afterwards. Lord Baltimore knows he doesn’t feel anything, and privately that haunts him. But to see him feel pain again with the death of Childress… There’s this element in there where Lord Baltimore realizes he wasn’t completely lost; there was still a part of him capable of feeling ties to those around him. But there’s also the horror that this last tether to his humanity, which he didn’t even realize was there, has now been severed.

Continued below

Mike: Yeah, maybe my comics-only approach gave me less to start with in regards to Childress, and that’s why it was so easy for me to write him off. I agree that the seductress trope is beyond played out, so maybe that’s why making his final act a declaration of hatred for a woman who ‘destroyed’ him, as opposed to a moment of connection with his old friend, just seemed hollow. I sort of feel like he was the weak link that was able to be exploited, so really Zoya was just taking the path of least resistance. If he realized that a flaw in his personality put Baltimore’s crusade at risk, I’d have felt like it was a stronger character moment than lashing out and laying blame. I dunno, folks are probably rolling their eyes at me now.

Mark: No, you make a good point. Of all the deaths in this issue, I felt the least for Childress.

Mike: Anything you want to add before we pin a score on this? Wanna do two scores? One for the issue and another for the series overall?

Mark: Sure, why not?

But first, I have to mention how much I loved the moment with Sofia saving Harish in this issue. I love the strong respect these two have for each other, and how that’s growing into a strong friendship. A future issue needs to dig deeper into Harish though. We know so little about him at the moment.

Also, now that Mr. Marchand has been named, I’m even more inclined than before to think he’ll be joining Lord Baltimore’s team as more than just Aischros’s first mate.

And finally, Peter Bergting was fantastic on this arc. I loved what he did with the horror elements, but more than anything I loved how he pushed the high fantasy elements of this world. He made this truly feel like the most epic “Baltimore” story to date.

This issue is a 9 for me. Aischros’s death was just so well handled, and then to have it all be for nothing, when Hodge dies anyway, and having Dr. Rose shoulder that burden… I loved that stuff. I really enjoyed this arc. Overall this is an 8.5 for the arc. As much as I enjoyed “The Inquisitor” and “The Wolf and the Apostle”, this is my favorite.

Mike: This issue was a great end to the arc, and probably the best issue Bergting’s done yet. I’ll give it an 8.

As for the arc overall, let’s say a 7 from me. As I outlined above, I found the first two issues to be murky, but it really turned around in the end. I’d be willing to change that to a 10, though, if Skelton Crew Studio ever puts those Red King cult masks into production. I’d like one of those very much.

Issue Verdict: 8.5.
Miniseries Verdict: 7.75.


//TAGS | Mignolaversity

Mark Tweedale

Mark writes Haunted Trails, The Harrow County Observer, The Damned Speakeasy, and a bunch of stuff for Mignolaversity. An animator and an eternal Tintin fan, he spends his free time reading comics, listening to film scores, watching far too many video essays, and consuming the finest dark chocolates. You can find him on BlueSky.

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Mike Romeo

Mike Romeo started reading comics when splash pages were king and the proper proportions of a human being meant nothing. Part of him will always feel that way. Now he is one of the voices on Robots From Tomorrow. He lives in Philadelphia with two cats. Follow him on Instagram at @YeahMikeRomeo!

EMAIL | ARTICLES


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