SWORD has been a delight to cover, from the team going to the very stretch of the universe to grab a gem in issue #1 to their return to Earth’s orbit to help fight off Knull during King in Black. The creative team made a beautiful storyline, from beginning to its finish, as SWORD combats the Knull-infected Cable.
SWORD #4
Al Ewing (Writer), Marte Gracia (Colorist, Cover Artist), Ariana Maher (Letterer), Tom Muller (Design), Valerio Schitti and Marte Gracia (Cover Artists), Valerio Schiti (Artist, Cover Artist)
Marvel Comics
March 17, 2021
SWORD #4 opens with a monologue from Joanna Cargill, AKA Frenzy. This has a similar effect to the opening of issue #3 with Manifold’s dialogue, by pushing Frenzy into being the viewpoint character of the issue as well as functioning as a signifier the storyline is about to finish. Ewing’s narrative cohesion here in visuals (Frenzy resembling the spheres in which Magneto arrived to the Peak) is a delightful and strong aspect of the SWORD title.
Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia fully convey the grossness of the scene as the tendrils have a living feel to them in inks that are amplified by the blacks, blues, and purples that encompass the page. Aside from Manifold, nothing fully feels alive and simultaneously does not feel dead. I like how ocean-like the page conveys the feeling of being submerged, with debris floating around the characters and everything and everyone flowing like they are underwater. Schiti’s pencils have a very loose feel to them to pair with the feeling of being submerged, seen best with Frenzy’s hair. The hair does not feel static, but rather continuously in motion.
The flowing hair and the tendrils containing a feeling of being alive acts as a nice contradiction to Cab-Knull’s declaration about his “garden of death.”
Al Ewing’s inclusion of a verse from Milton’s Paradise Lost, “No light, but rather darkness visible” is a more than apt narrative and thematic choice as darkness visibly pervades the issue, not only from Knull himself but also the lights of the Peak being cut off. This results in an abundance of blue and its varying shades being the dominant color of the issue, with additional colors making their way in as the issue finishes. Gracia, in using blue, is displaying an atmosphere of lifelessness that goes in hand with Cab-Knull saying “My beautiful dark garden of death.”
Ewing solidifies Abigail Brand’s complete emotional detachment from Earth when she tells Hope, “You’re all Earthers to me”. This makes Brand seem even more like an alien than she does at the beginning of the series. At the same time, Brand is massively interesting because she feels at once a strong presence and a non-entity in comparison to her teammates. As of this issue, hardly a thing is known of Abigail Brand and the creative team behind the series may be changing this soon.
The most visually appealing thing to appear in the issue is Wiz Kid changing Mentallo’s Think Tank into a moving giant mech. Schiti leans into giant mechs as a concept being grandiose with the mech here encompassing nearly the entire page. There is also a sense of silliness to it as the mech resembles a massive robotic toy, akin to a Transformer. Gracia’s colors as the mech comes together then attacks the symbiote ooze makes for a very pretty scene because it both breaks up the sea of blue that characterized previous pages with oranges and yellows, both colors associated with light and marks the beginning of Cable being rescued from Knull’s control.
SWORD’s creative team stuck the landing in making a fantastic issue that concludes the first storyline of the series. The pencils and inks from Valerio Schiti on each page would be able to hold the issue without the additional coloring from Marte Gracia. Combined with Gracia’s coloring, they make a deeply beautiful book among the titles in the Reign of X initiative and Marvel’s current output. Schiti’s pencils and particularly his inks contain a strong grab for attention as they are each distinct and quite memorable.
