Hinterkind #4 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Francesco Trifogli (art), Cris Peter (colors)

The Story: It’s never a good thing when your doctor is sicker than you are.

The Review: One of the unfortunate necessities of serial fiction is that it doesn’t have much tolerance for stories that need extra time to get their acts together.  With novels, you come in prepared for a few chapters of exposition, where the plot is slowly constructing itself, because you have the luxury of reading on until you get some action.  When the story comes to you in monthly doses, it’s natural to expect a little more bang for your buck.

It’s pretty clear that Edginton has spent the last few issues painstakingly putting the big pieces of Hinterkind together, establishing the various character groupings (Prosper and Angus, Asa’s scouting party, Hobb’s gang, Starla’s posse, etc.) and multiple plotlines (Angus’ mutation, the oncoming Hinterkind conflicts, humanity’s general survival, etc.).  The title isn’t lacking in material, just cohesiveness.  Four issues in, you’d be hard-pressed to explain to a potential reader what Hinterkind is about.