DMZ #32

Blood in the Game: Chapter 4
By Brian Wood (writer) and Riccardo Burchielli (artist)

Most of this chapter is slowly paced. Most of it is devoted to the immediate aftermath of the event that happened at the beginning of the arc and the end of the previous chapter. Matty is waiting for news, something to happen. Eventually something does.

While he is waiting the visual storytelling gets a little more interesting than it was in the previous chapter, which is to say more visual. There are a number of splash pages and pages with a limited number of panels. They don't move the story forward by leaps and bounds but they do help to reveal some of the nuances. The panels flow together better in this chapter. The gestures and facial expressions are more expressive and meaningful.

Eventually the pace picks up, towards the end, and the story starts to move forward more quickly, once again. It ends on a cliffhanger with Matty having to decide what to do, how he should handle the situation. He doesn't hold all the cards. He is at a bit of a disadvantage but doing nothing is not an option.

DMZ is published by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics.