Comic book review: Evil Empire #4- Say hello to the bad guys

Writer: Max Bemis
Artist: Andrea Mutti
Publisher: Boom Studios
Released: 27th August 2014


I know this review is a bit late, but I’ve just got around to reading the book, and I have to say something about it, late or not. If you read my review of Evil Empire #3 you’ll know that I absolutely loved the conclusion to that issue. It promised something more than I was expecting, something that is continued in Issue #4 where our punk rock heroine realises that she’s been played for a sucker by a devious politician. This issue introduces a creepy comic book style villain, and has the newly elected President of the USA giving a very crazy acceptance speech, a speech that is probably a bit too crazy:

‘We will be their Nazi’s, their Al Qaeda, their Sith, their Hydra.’

The Evil Empire has revealed itself, with the newly elected President of the United States telling America that it’s sick, and that he is going to cure that sickness whether they like it or not. How is that going to go down with the statist suckers that voted for him? My guess is that they’ll do what Barrack (Hope and Change) Obama’s supporters are doing now. They’ll be wilfully ignorant or try to blame somebody else for their cult leader’s lying ways. That’s how it usually works in cult mind control situations like political puppet worship. The followers cannot accept that they have been lied to, so they go into denial and make excuses for their beloved leader rather than look at the cold hard facts of what he has actually done.

I can envision some reviewers complaining about the nature of the speech made by the new president in this issue, as it’s so completely unlike the bullshit and platitudes nonsense you usually get from the professional liar scum politicians. I agree, it is highly unlikely that any politician, let alone a President would speak in this manner. That doesn’t stop me from enjoying this book though. The story is something that you don’t often get to read about in comic books, so I appreciate it as a refreshing change from the norm.

Evil Empire #4 is a full stop to the first stage of the story arc. Our punk rock protagonist has been played for a fool and the Evil Empire has been established. This issue feels like an end, so it will be interesting to see how it starts to kick into gear again. That’s a problem with this issue, that it feels like a full-stop and as we already know how the story ends (due to the frequent flash-forwards in time) it doesn’t really offer much hope for a happy conclusion.

The entire series so far has been exploring how America slipped into totalitarianism and became a moral vacuum, but now it has been explained there doesn’t appear to be any more story to tell. Is this a mistake by writer Max Bemis, or does he have something else up his sleeve? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here as I’ve really enjoyed his book so far, and I’ll be picking up the next issue just to see if he can inject some new life into a story that already appears to have been told.

Rating: 7.5/10