“Happiness is that moment just before you realize you need more happiness.”

This book is drenched in “dramatic irony” – especially when it comes to the love triangle that quickly formed last issue between Will, Alison and Dark Hour. Will we see some kind of resolution? I guess we wait and see. The story had great potential to be a gimmick, given its meta-meta-meta nature. Happily, it is no gimmick. It has turned out to be a really solid, albeit strange, story of love, redemption, and heroics.

The official description from Image:

The evil Devil-Inside has captured Will, Alison, and Dark Hour — and his mood is good — which only means that he plans to kill again. Is it really possible for your worst nightmare to come to life… and murder you?

Glen Brunswick is keeping really great pace with this story. Last issue’s cliffhanger remained in the shadows through the majority of this issue, and almost formulaically emerged at just the right time. What I find interesting, is that Glen has found a way to take something extremely esoteric (a meta-meta-meta story) and fit it into a “simple plot”. A plot with: 1) A “Good Guy”; 2) A “Bad Guy”; 3) A “Downtrodden Protagonist”, and 4) A “Damsel in Distress”. Sure, in many stories  #1 and #3 are the same guy…and in this story, they kind of are too…which makes it very interesting. Simple and complex all at the same time. Nice job.

Viktor Boydanovic’s art is fantastic. Pretty is pretty; gritty is gritty. It fits with the story perfectly. In fact, I couldn’t imagine Dark Hour to be any less or more “goofy superhero looking” than he is. At the same time, Will looks “normal” – which is exactly what is needed. Allison is illustrated to be beautiful and realistic. Again, perfect. And on the other extreme, Devil-Inside, is appropriately and diametrically repulsive. Another item of note – the facial expressions are dead on. Wonderful job.

Once again, I have to I recommend this book. Reality Check #3 is worth the read – especially if you have made it this far. Since as far as I can tell from the Image solicit for Issue 4, this is a 4-issue mini-series.

4/5