Born of Blood #4 is comic written by Dolan with Joe Corallo and illustrated by Carlos Beccaria with colors by Sebastian Gonzalez. After their narrow escape from captivity Giaris and Leonidas find themselves fighting for their lives. This is a comic overflowing with combat and viciousness along with some significant developments. Our leading lady for this tale is the Princess of Sparta Giaris, a woman with an appetite for violence and enough determination to stave off death. With her is King Leonidas, the man who claimed the throne after the passing of the former king and who has as much resolution as Giaris with a much meaner streak. This story begins right where the last one ended, which was with Leonidas dangling precariously from a cliff as he called out to Giaris for help. There is an immense amount of combat here paired with the theme of just trying to get back home. The action here is very bloody with some gruesome attacks and death all around. The pacing is steady overall with the fight scenes having varying speeds. This is high intensity nearly the entire time with the lightheartedness kept to a minimum. The dialogue is very angry with mid-battle remarks and serious jokes. There aren’t any wordy pages here. This is an issue that has large amounts of exciting violence with two capable leads and a story that’ll answer some questions and leave you with a couple more.

            The art here is drawn in a way that may remind you of ancient Greek art from the designs and the overall color scheme which is mainly browns and reds. The scenery is rocks, from the rocky inside of a cave to the snow-covered rocks outside of the cave. The primary location is the inside of the cave where prisoners are being held and throughout every panel you will see the rocky, deep tunneled inside of the cave in the background. Very rarely will you see a panel background with just action lines and solid colors. The expression level here is high with the main look being one of anger mixed with determination. While we do get some other looks and emotions like fear and uncertainty those are far less common. The expressions are sometimes a bit difficult to clearly decipher but that’s because the faces are covered in cuts and blood,, which makes sense. The action scenes here are lengthy with plenty of panels for each moment of the scene. The flow might have a hitch or too in it but you shouldn’t get lost. The violence here is brutal and bloody with hard hits galore and some gruesome attacks. The outfits here are the bare minimum for all genders.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like lady-led stories set in Greece with intense, bloody combat and theme of survival than this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Violence, blood, death.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“I don’t require a blade for you.”

 

Physical Link: https://mercpublishing.com/products/born-of-blood-4-cover-a-sajad-shah?_pos=2&_sid=1c2d2eb53&_ss=r

Digital Link: https://mercpublishing.com/products/born-of-blood-4-pdf-download?_pos=1&_sid=83a6e1b88&_ss=r

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mercmagazine/born-of-blood-4-special-edition/description

Unboxing Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7O8sO_zK4k

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 11, for 50% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 2, for 9% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 4

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 4

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 4

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 3

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”