Written by Brendon Small, Jon Schnepp & Jeremy Barlow
Illustrated by Lucas MaragnonDethklok have constructed the ultimate concert venue, the DethTrain–three stories high and eight car lanes wide, requiring a small nation’s worth of manpower and materials to build. But a deadly ghost haunts the iron leviathan, murdering its way toward the band and giving Dethklok’s adversary, the Blues Devil, another shot at claiming their souls. Evil rides the rails, turning a killer live show into a one–way trip to hell!
The off screen adventures of everyone’s favorite fictional Death Metal band finally reaches its conclusion. Click below to see if the final chapter delivers on its brutal promises!
As a fan of these characters and of this series, I found an immense amount to love from this three issue mini. Spearheaded by the show’s creators, it gave us three wildly entertaining “between the gaps” stories that fit right into the ongoing exploits of the characters on the TV show itself. However, I feel the true value of these books comes not from the stories they tell, but the way in which those stories expands on the stories told by the show and the way it manages to delve much deeper into character back-stories than the show is able to.
This issue features the return of Mashed Potato Johnson, last seen on the fantastic “bluesklok” episode from Season 1 who warns Dethklok about a foul ghoul, the train ghost, that aimed to turn their latest endeavor into a living nightmare. Now, this endeavor just happened to be performing for their fans on top of the thirty story high, ten thousand feet long, economy boosting, custom built Dethtrain, but taking that as the norm a ghost could still seem pretty scary.
As the band and their manager Charles Offdenson decides what the best way to proceed with the show is, we learn more about the mystical Blues Devil and the nature of blues music. You see, its not the musician that the devil leaves his mark on, but the music itself. No matter who plays it, the music will still retain its mystic power. However, gaining this power comes at a price, so while the boys perform a song written by their friend Johnson, Johnson himself parlays his soul to the blues devil in exchange for all the souls the Train Ghoul ever took, thereby settling their score. We’re also given a simple side scene that sheds a little more light on the disturbed past of everyone’s favorite Rock n’ Roll Clown, Dr. Rockzo.
We’re given a relatively simple story with a more or less simply execution. However, the true value of this comic is unmistakable: it looks, feels and reads like a Metalocalypse tale. The characters motivations and voices all transfer to the page intact and the art, even more than the last two issues, syncs up with the animation style of the show almost perfectly. When it comes to adaptation comics, especially ones that adapt animation, sheer strength of the art is not enough. Books like this MUST work visually with the established norms, and Marangon succeeds with flying colors.
Of course, if you weren’t a fan to begin with, you probably would not enjoy this book as much as I did. Although honestly, if you’re reading the comic without having seen the show…what is wrong with you? Get thee to Adult Swim.com! Whether this is the end of Dethklok’s comic book adventure, or simply the beginning, with just as much dedication and attention to detail shown to it as is shown to the show, I can only hope that we see more moving down the road (though, maybe AFTER Season 4 starts up and The Dethalbum 3 hits shelves.)
Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy
