Review: Darkness #97

Jackie Esticado starts to see exactly how hard his mission to take back control of his life has become. I am sure that Jackie thought the he could just stroll into the home of the Darkness and kill or at least disable the entity that has had it's hooks in Jackie for years. Sadly that is not the case. Jackie finds an unlikely ally in Sonatine, a man who had tried to take the Darkness from Jackie, but now has found himself trapped in this hellish like dimension. Epic battles ensue as Jackie reluctantly joins an army bent on destroying another faction in this world. Sonatine gives us some exposition about how this world works
and what Jackie is going to have to do if he wants to get to the heart of the Darkness.

Phil Hester's writing is great. He has a grasp of the character that we really haven't seen since Ennis left the title. And the art by Romano Molenaar is fantastic. I was a little disappointed that there were word balloons in this issue, after last issues nearly wordless story. Molenaar is able to give us the big bloody battles we expect to see in the Darkness, but is also able to slow things down and give us some great character interactions.

With the Hester's final arc reaching it's half way point, I am extremely excited to see where the book goes. Will Jackie actually get a happy ending? Probably not, being that this is Jackie we're talking about. But I am sure that what ever Phil has in mind that it will be entertaining and definitely bloody.