Born of Blood #5 is a comic by Dolan with Joe Corallo and illustrated by Carlos Beccaria with colors by Sebastian Gonzalez. After they find themselves being hunted in Sparta Giaris and Leonidas make their way towards the palace. This is a piece of historical fiction with plenty of bloody and brutal combat amidst a compelling story. The leading lady for this tale is Giaris, the Princess of Sparta who has fought her way through bad situations just to get back home. With her is Leonidas, the current King of Sparta who finds that things have changed in his absence. Also making an appearance here is the former advisor to the king, Aurelia. This story begins with Giaris and Leonidas making plans to get through the city as sneakily as possible but they’ll need to adapt on the fly. There are many flashbacks throughout this story that add an extra layer to some of the characters. The action here is bloody with some nasty shots with very light gore. The pacing is faster than average but it slows down during the intense and important moments. The dialogue is proper and very aggressive with no wordy pages. This is a penultimate issue that ramps up the story and builds up the characters as we near what should be an exciting conclusion.

            The art here is has a stronger cartoonish element than previous entries and has an overall increase in exaggeration. The color palette primarily consists of reds and browns with some well done lighting. This takes place in the city so the scenery is mostly building and columns but some flashbacks have some grass and rubble. There isn’t main location as Giaris and Leonidas are moving through the city but the palace is a prominent in the main story and in scenes form the past. The backgrounds are usually gradient colors, action lines, or a mixture of both. The expression level is above-average as the cartoonishness leads to more animated looks from the characters. The range is from anger to sadness and all of the emotions are easy to ascertain. The faces have a large amount of detail from the wrinkles to the teeth but on rare occasion the amount of detail drops and it can look out of place. The hair is flows in this comic. The violence here is hard-hitting and bloody with some gruesome shots akin to something from and MMA bout. The action scenes flow well and feature fists and blades. The bare minimum of clothes seems to be the ideal here no matter the gender.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you enjoy historical fiction centered around Sparta starring a woman and a man with combat prowess in a dangerous situation where they don’t really know what is going on then this is for you.

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

R. Violence, blood, light gore.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“…words that I would never forget.”

 

Physical Link: https://mercpublishing.com/products/born-of-blood-5-cover-a-jeffrey-edwards?_pos=2&_sid=b0c7a8b0a&_ss=r

Digital Link: https://mercpublishing.com/products/born-of-blood-5-pdf-download?_pos=1&_sid=b0c7a8b0a&_ss=r

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: 8, for 36% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

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

 

Violence Level – 3

“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 – 1

“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 – 1

“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.”