Xombi #6 – Review

By: John Rozum (writer), Frazer Irving (artist)

The Story: I don’t know about you, but I have a sudden urge to play Cranium.

The Review: Every writer on the market has a measure of imagination; you can’t get anywhere in writing if you don’t.  But it’s fair to say that some have a little more than others.  While you have plenty of people who can take classic ideas and polish them up to make them like new, only a very few, dare I say special, individuals can dream up something so unheard of that it deserves the classification of originality.  I contend Rozum is one of those special guys.

But don’t take my word for it; take Rozum’s, in his description of the Sisterhood of Blood Mummies: “…they each have developed a second, external [circulatory system] connected to a second heart.  The extra blood…gives them incredible energy and endurance levels…  To protect themselves they wear cloaks woven…by spiders which crawl all over these cloaks making any necessary repairs and feeding on the mosquitos drawn to the sisters.”

Rozum also delivers a solidly crafted story.  Though he dropped in a handy plot device last issue with the Pearl of Wisdom, he doesn’t use it give David and his pals a convenient way out of their predicament.  Of all the revelations the pearl offers to David, he chooses not the one that will help him defeat Finch, but one that eventually serves a different, but nonetheless crucial task in reviving the fortunes of the ruined Floating Skull.  It says a lot about the kind of person David is.