Review – Insufferable #4 (IDW Publishing)

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Mark Waid
Artists: Peter Krause, Nolan Woodward
Released: 5th August 2015

So it turns out, even superheroes can get trolled on social media. Who knew? The ugly reality of how the likes of Twitter and Facebook are changing the way that we communicate is something that’s more or less unanimously glossed over in, well, most forms of narrative, and Insufferable, refreshingly, doesn’t flinch away from this at all. And it was all going so well for Galahad…

The issue opens with a classic villain gambit from the one selected at the end of the final issue – only in an ingenious wisecrack of a twist, Waid and Krause pull a fast one on us with the timeline, and quite who the good guy in the scene should be. Subtle details in the artwork clue you in initially, and as with any good joke, the punchline kills (a window). It’s a wonderfully neat trick that you might expect to be pulled off over the course of an issue, rather than in the gap between them.

Krause’s art remains more than equal to Waid’s writing – his mastery of the human figure, as well as his scene compositions, perfectly imbuing each panel with a sense of motion and weight. In particular, he’s allowed to flex his muscles via a car chase – whilst Galahad is tormented on this universe’s version of Twitter – and impressively imbues it with a sense of velocity the likes of which I’ve not seen since that terrific sequence of chases in All New Ghost Rider.

With those incredibly strong first three issues behind it, Insufferable has really come into its own with this issue – a deepening mystery surrounding Nocturnus, exceptionally staged action, fused with a commentary on just how well a Batman-archetype superhero would really work in the information age, where the separation between the light and the dark is mostly shadow, and no-one really has anywhere to hide. Waid continues to blend his dark wit with scathing social commentary, Krause’s art is spot on, and whilst this issue is lighter on the laughs, it’s still a great read. Hit him again, Emily!

Rating: 4/5.

The Writer of this piece was: Ross Sweeney
Ross tweets from @Rostopher24