Dead/Alive #5
I actually kind of like the guest artist’s cover. That is all I can say that I actually like about this series. Ok, this is the final stretch. Let’s get this done!
Troy and Christabella get this ball rolling when they see Connie going all goddess on their asses. She eats Troy’s soul out, which is weird considering that I thought he lost his soul at the end of Dying Inside Issue #2. He gave up his soul to spare Lynn but whatever. I’ve not come to expect anything remotely resembling continuity by now. 
I actually kind of like this panel, even if his “soul” looks like marshmallow filing. The Goddess Connie eats out Troy’s soul and then tries to eat Christabella’s soul but Christabella makes a deal w/ her to which she gets a look at comic living!
Kenneth is talking to his zombie aviator dad about his past and why he was drawn to Silent Hill. Turns out that Kenneth’s father met a demon-woman once upon a time. The bumped uglies in the name of the cult and intended to use the baby resulting as a tool to spread the evil of Silent Hill. Which brings up another problem! Let’s say Ike was their first choice. They spend all that time sending him visions of monsters and whatnot to get him to paint them and spread the evil, then he fails and is killed. Then Lynn is called on to film the monsters as the cult believes that photographic evidence is going to have a bigger impact than some paintings. Lynn does what she is supposed to but Lauryn’s buddies intercept the films. Finally Kenneth is called upon, a famous actor that everyone seems to know. He is tainted and then set loose on as a vicious serial killer. As direct an influence as the order can think up. Now they are saying that he was bred to spread evil?!
That means their plan started, let’s call it, 25+ yr.s ago. Long before Ike or Lynn were called on. I get that supposedly Kenneth’s parents went rogue and sent him away so he would not be used, but the order was able to call him anyway and even use Ike’s paintings to intrigue him. Seems like a lot of work put into one plan to have so many backups. 
Kenneth freaks out by the fact that he is only half human and that he is a monster. His dad tries to cheer him up. While that is going on, Lauryn and Whately are doing battle. Eventually the fight is taken to Christabella, Kenneth and The Goddess Connie. They are all yelling at each other to kill one another, but Kenneth decides that he loves Connie so much he is going to destroy her body so that he can free her soul in case it is trapped. He hits her and AH! ACTION PANEL!!!
Turns out that by destroying the goddess w/n Connie, everyone is thrown into different dimensions.
Kenneth wakes to find that he lives on a ranch w/ Connie and most importantly, BEAR THE DOG LIVES! He asks Connie about the other dimension, but she doesn’t know what he is talking about, she gives the same answer when he asks if she remembers any of his movies. 
Lauryn and Ike are shacked up together in France. Lauryn seems to remember the other dimension, but Ike only mentions in passing that he seems to remember the name “Kenneth Carter”, though in Lauryn’s univers, Kenneth and Connie where killed in bed together. 
Christabella is placed back in control of Silent Hill and all the poorly rendered Trapezoid Heads. (so sad) Even after she has a deep conversation with Bear the Dog about how no one is born evil and that everyone, even she could choose their own path and be good. Guess that was for nothing.
And that was Dead/Alive.
How did it do?
WORSE THAN DYING INSIDE.
At least Dying Inside TRIED to tell a story. It tried to link the characters together like links in a chain, even if it was badly done. Troy was connect to Lynn who was connected to Christabella who was connected to Lauryn who was connected to Lynn again. It was roundabout but at least it was a try.
Dead/Alive was not even trying. It kept throwing in new characters, new plot devices and all while boring me w/ the same old problems of me not giving a crap about anyone in this series.
I will admit, thus far Kenneth is the character I’ve hated the least, but in the last issue of Dead/Alive he goes all whinny and suddenly losses his bland non-personality. He whines about his father using him and that he isn’t human then suddenly decides that he wants to do his own thing because he owes it to himself.
Don’t read these. If you have started Dying Inside just, well one… stop. Why? Why would you read them?! And if you really just want to get through them, go for it. But just stop at the final issue. It isn’t worth it to go into Dead/Alive. It effectively renders Dying Inside pointless. Dead/Alive not only tells the same story of Dying Inside again, but does it in a more roundabout way than the first time!
SILENT HILL: DEAD/ALIVE RATE: 1/10
I can’t wait to get into the stand alones. I bet it’ll be like pulling off band-aids.
Dead/Alive #4
Ghost aviator zombie w/ boobs? No. That would make this interesting. Unless Kenneth’s dad is also his mom. That would be fun!
Alright, let’s get down to it. Kenneth is told to chose between the 3 “innocents” around him or they will all die. Christabella powers up enough to perform a HADUKEN to Lenora’s chest, the special soul-stealing knife burring into her heart. Lenora laughs about Christabella using a soul-stealing knife on someone that doesn’t have a soul, so Christabella runs away. Kenneth tries to take advantage and attack Lenora while she is wounded, but she points out that Connie is gone and that if he wants to save her, he has to bring back all 3 back before the clock finishes chiming midnight.
Kenneth takes off looking for Connie, Christabella and Bear the Dog, while we are thrown over to an interview w/ a witness. Some woman saw Kenneth kill the detective in the parking lot so instead of calling the police, she contacts some news station run but Sephiroth!
No seriously. That is Sephiroth, but calls himself Whately. Remember him, how he disappeared at the end of Dying Inside and we didn’t care? Well apparently while he was gone he grew long white hair and purple-blue eyes and know has his own news station.
We find Christabella randomly coming across a boy named Daniel.
I guess that makes sense— NO WAIT. Why is there some random boy in Silent Hill? Silent Hill is a bustling tourist town in the real world, but in the Otherworld, we only have the main cast of characters unless another is brought in for a specific reason. This kid is just wondering around and shows up to show Christabella a place to hide. The go inside a club w/ weird font!
And it turns out Daniel is…
Troy?! What?!
WHAT?!?!?!?!
Fuck you comic. Fuck you. I actually raged as I read that. What is the fucking point? Why would Troy need to disguise himself? Why would Christabella follow him? How did she not know it was Troy? Since when could Troy shape-shift into a small child? Can’t Troy just drag her off like he did all the other times? This is STUPID.
UGH
Kenneth decides to give up looking for the missing sacrifices and decides to go get the book at Lauryn’s house. When he gets there he meets dead Jess, detective and random corner guy. They try taunting him into fighting them, but he chooses to attack the chains on some door to Lauryn’s room. Inside he finds the magic book and then meets his dad!
Yeah! His dad is a zombie ghost aviator because why the hell not. Before we get to know anything about zombie aviator dad, we cut back to Christabella being tortured by Troy somewhere. He mentions something about “the woman in the room” which make Christabella go all shock-faced. Then Troy starts talking about how this will change things, and suddenly Connie appears and says that “the vessel has been filled”. 
I don’t want to know. Moving on BECAUSE ANSWERS ARE UNNEEDED IN SILENT HILL COMICS! We see Lenora going to Whately for more power, asking him to heal her after that whole knife-to-the-chest thing. He tells her that if he healed her in her current state, she will be able to tap into their collective power and she could possibly kill them all. She says she wouldn’t don that and it is revealed that DUN DUN DUUUUUUNNNN!!!!
Lenora is Lauryn! Wait, what. Why? Why did she transform into another person w/ basically the same friggin’ name, do the same thing she was doing before and basically be the same person!? Lauryn, you are an idiot and Ciencin you are a bad writer. Do you even know what a “disguise” is?! A disguise is taking on an identity other than your own in order to hide motives while in action or hide from the actions and motives of another party. You don’t just put on your sister’s face, slightly change your name and continue doing what you were doing before w/ no heed for caution or hiding your mission. I mean fucking really?!
This is like a plot point just to be a plot point.
Dead/Alive #3
I am beginning to think I was wrong. Maybe each issue features a guest artist or something, because yet another artist is credited for the cover art, Chris Bolton this time.
We open w/ Ike, Kenneth and Christabella standing around talking. Ike talks about how great of a lay Lauryn is and Christabella tells him that he is actually dead and that Lauryn just enjoys “mercy fucks”. Classy. Ike refuses to believe he is dead and amidst his whining Christabella gets sprayed by some demon blood as they hack and slash their way through the streets. Ike is really irritating.
For whatever reason Christabella becomes a vampire and starts eating the blood even though the synopsis in issue #2 states that she is alive and eats “greasy hamburgers”. She gains enough power to kill everything in sight, including Bear the dog’s demon dog posse that “he made his bitches”. I hate Ike. And then Kenneth has this inner monologue in which he talks about the fact that Ike was the town’s first shot at trying to popularize the horrors of Silent Hill and that Kenneth is their second choice but that isn’t right. Lynn from Dying Inside was one of their choices! I don’t know if she was before Ike or after as it never states any sort of timeline, but we know that Kenneth was called after Lynn made her tape because her tape was used to get Lauryn into Silent Hill! This series can’t even keep its OWN HISTORY STRAIGHT!
Elsewhere, we see Connie being bathed by sexy nurses who are quoting old movies like Snow White and The Wizard of Oz. Lenora tells Connie that she made the monsters talk because she thought it would be entertaining. 
Man, I wish I was making this up. She tells Connie that she is the “Empty Vessel” that we’ve been seeing messages about since the first issue. She suggests (and Kenneth also mentions in Issue #2) that he and Connie he been expecting a child together, but that the child was lost, by choice or not is unknown. Lenora tells Connie that she will be filled again but “who or what will play daddy” should be her main concern.
Back w/ Ike and Kenneth, the group come across a festival. 
Apparently Lenora is also known as Jezebeth, the demon of falsehood. They travel through the fair and into a shop in search of something specific. Ike finds some special dagger which he tells Kenneth is the only way to kill Lenora—and Christabella. Ike also starts dropping hints that Lenora looks like a grown version of Christabella. Ike gets cut by the knife and that apparently calls attention to them from the monsters. Kenneth picks up a gun and starts gunning down the monsters, which physically turns him into “the blonde-hair, blue-eyed, blood-stained boy next door” that Lenora want him to become to spread the evil of Silent Hill. 
He realizes he is changing and sees a vision of himself killing a detective and a corner that were investigating Jess’ death in the real world. He is unable to tell what is real and what is not, but it doesn’t matter (a common theme in these comics) as Lenora has an ultimatum for him. He has to kill one of the “innocents” around him. He must chose between Connie, Bear the Dog and Christabella. 
She tells him that if he kills one or… I don’t know. At first it seems like he has to kill one of 3 to save Connie, but she is included in the sacrifice list. Then I thought maybe it was a deal that if he killed one of them, she would erase the crimes he did/will do in the real world, but she tells him that no matter what he is going to be her emissary. So it is a pointless deal and there is no reason for him to even chose. He can’t possibly kill Christabella— and the dog is the best character in this series!
I would almost care but then I don’t. And Ike made me really not care. Did I mention that I didn’t like him yet? Because he is an ass. He is like a 90s cartoon that just pops up for no reason.
2 more issues to go!
DEAD/ALIVE #2
This comic is horrible. Even worse than the other ones. It is so bad, the artist from issue #1 did the cover, then they got another artist to make another cover and continue the series. And it wasn’t like the new-new artist was any better. Nick Stakal’s style is almost identical to Ted McKeever. Seriously. The cover that looks like it was done by someone else, was done by the same guy as the first issue, but the entire issue looks like it was done by that guy, but is done by another guy! The story behind these comics is almost as confusing as the actually fucking story!
Speaking of the story, Kenneth and Christabella continue to roam around Silent Hill. For whatever reason the monsters are not attack them but they decide they need to hide. They duck into a movie theater where one of Kenneth’s movies is playing. Inside he finds some paperwork about him as a child before he was adopted and his name was Joshua Reynolds. He starts reading about his past but doesn’t make it far before Christabella runs off to watch a movie. 
The movie is briefly an excerpt of Kenneth’s “future”. And what is w/ that 70s groovy font?! I couldn’t even read the damn thing. Anyway, I guess he is going to get the same treatment as Troy and become a tentacle chest. Suddenly Connie appears and shows him an image of his girlfriend Jess dead, an ax buried in her head. Above her body the message states that Jess was “… a whore that got what she deserved. Kenneth with blood on his hands.” I guess the implication is that they are setting him up for murder, but there is nothing in the note like “I am Kenneth Carter and I kill dis bish.” 
The movie cuts back to Connie who’s eyes start bleeding and Kenneth realizes it is Lenora. Lenora tells him that he should just give up, and then Troy comes in out of nowhere.
Troy tries to drag Christabella back to her limbo-like world but Christabella magically gains some powers back. She says something about feeling “a gift” inside, a “family inheritance” that she “had to be alive to get.”
Wait, so she IS alive?! No. How is she alive? Her stomach has been ripped open for an unknown amount of time, unless you are going to say that she is living around that giant wound. WHICH IS STUPID. Also, why is she magically getting Lauryn’s powers? Other than a single panel in the beginning of issue #1, we have not seen Lauryn at all. Is she dead? Did she disappear, blink out of existence and there was some sort of weird delay and Christabella JUST NOW got her powers?
You know, I don’t even care. She gets her power and is able to summon some Pyramid Heads (yes, multiple Trapezoid Heads again) to slow Troy down, but she does not have enough power to go after Lenora. He drops to the ground and Kenneth picks her up and carries her out. I would’ve left her but I guess Kenneth is a better person than me. Lenora screams at him, asking him why he is helping her and he replies “Because you are scared of her. That is enough for me.”
They make it outside and then suddenly some guy named Ike Isaacs shows up and says that some “goth-chick” called him in to help Kenneth because Kenneth bought all his paintings. 
Oh yeah, and not only do the monsters talk BUT THE DOG GETS AN INTERNAL MONOLGUE!
I-I can’t. I just can’t.
This comic is so bad that I was almost sure I actually died of boredom, was sent to hell and had someone flipping through this comic and forcing me to read it.
Kenneth is the best character so far, but mostly because he is the only one w/o a personality, which is a double-edge sword. He isn’t suffering from the Single Personality Disorder that all the other characters in the Silent Hill Comics seem to suffer from, but on the other hand, he has no drive. He keeps talking about wanting to find his parents and that he wants to find Connie, but he doesn’t seem to be really going after either. He just sort of sticks next to Christabella even after he realize she isn’t a normal 8 yr. old girl—YEAH. SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE 8! This is the first comic that has a little synopsis at the beginning that not only wraps up what happened in the last issue, but tells me what is supposed to be happening in the coming issue.
The only problem is the stories do not match up! I am tempted to not even look at the synopsis because I like trying to figure out what is happening for myself, but it is so hard to figure out what the hell is going on that I have to read the synopsis. Which is really frustrating.
Dead/Alive #1
BLARG
Dead/Alive is a follow up to Dying Inside though there is supposed to have been some time passed between the two. Christabella is in some form of alternate reality but is able to see into the normal reality in which Lauryn rules over. Christabella still has her lovely little stomach wound and claims that she has tried to kill herself but was unable to actually do it and that she just hung there and nothing happened. 
At first I figured she was in some sort of limbo, unable to pass on no matter what happened, but then she gets attacked by a demon dog and says that she has a pulse! You can’t have a pulse w/ a gapping stomach wound!
She says that she doesn’t want to be a real girl and runs off. Which is weird because I thought she was real. I thought she was the remains of Lauryn’s younger sister. Lauryn made a big deal about not being able to tell if Christabella was the real Christabella or something that was just pretending to be her, but now we have not!Christabella herself saying that she is not real and doesn’t want to be real, so mystery over. It isn’t Christabella which means Lauryn can kill or unkill her or whatever now, right?
We shift to some woman named Connie. 
Connie is shopping and talking about how she loved someone “it cost a piece of me”. I am going to guess that piece of her is going to be her personality. She starts talking to some old lady about her ex-boyfriend’s dick because he is some star in Hollywood and just did a porno. Then all the sudden what I think is supposed to be Valtiel pops up between the boxes of Captain Crunch and drag her off.
Because that is how Silent Hill works. It just kidnaps people from states away.
We have another shift to another main character. Kenneth Carter is Connie’s ex-boyfriend. He is currently shaking up w/ some woman named Jess who doesn’t seem to matter because she says so herself. He gets a call from a detective he’s hired to find his parents when the detective asks him about Connie. I guess the detective knows Connie is missing even though the OLD LADY SHE WAS TALKING TO DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE. He starts seeing shit and then goes through a painting on a wall and ends up in Silent Hill where he meets some woman named Lenora…
…who looks exactly like Christabella. Seriously, unless it does a clear, zoomed out shot, you cannot tell who is Christabella and who is Lenora. They even both have blood pouring their right eye for no reason. Lenora tells Kenneth he has to go to Silent Hill if he wants to save Connie and then drags him along before he even gets to make a choice.
And can I just talk about the art!?
YEAH
YEAH
YEAH, you see it too?!
We have yet another artist, this time it is Ted McKeever. He is actually a step back from either of the first 2 artists we had. Look at that Pyramid Head! SO SAD! The art is messy and the story does not make up for the messy art. Once again, all the characters act the same and the swear has been kicked up a notch. And I am almost sure that Christabella’s age keeps raising. In Dying Inside #1, she seemed like 5 or 6, #5 made her seem about 10 or so and now she looks like she is 15 or older! We know she was no older than 13 when she died, so how is she aging?! Ghosts don’t age!
I got excited when I read that there was another artist as the shift last time was a small step up, but nope. Didn’t make up for jack.
