The conflicts between Damien’s genetic reject army, the Vatican Black Ops team, and the remaining ReGen staff continue in this volume of Escape from Jesus Island. If gore and grotesqueness are your thing, you will not be disappointed, as new varieties of horrifying humanoid experiments grace almost every page of the story. In an appalling and fascinating twist, creator Shawn French adds another layer to the scientific misdeeds occurring on Malsum Island. ReGen isn’t the only group experimenting with the limits of cloning and genetics; Damien has his own laboratory hidden in the tunnels, where he cages and mutilates captured ReGen employees.  Creepy! Divisions between some of the ReGen staffers also crop up in Issue #4, and while Damien’s group doesn’t feel loyalty to the humans who created them, they are willing to work with some of them…as long as the humans do what they’re told. The final pages reveal the potential for more dark and disturbing subject matter in Issue #5, and I’m on board. Sometimes, you just need a skin-crawling tale to send a chill down your spine. (Hey, the heat index in Texas is in the triple digits right now.)

Glum’s eerie artwork continues to highlight the bloodshed, freakishness, and horror of the tale he and his co-creators have spun in the Escape from Jesus Island series, and I’d probably be disappointed if he tried to dial it down a notch. Obviously, if you’re sensitive to such things, this comic is made of nightmare fodder, but fans of the dark and morbid should enjoy the myriad of ghastly creatures appearing throughout this issue.

Again, it’s been a long time since I read the first three issues of Escape from Jesus Island, but I really didn’t have trouble picking up the storyline again. The action focus of Issue #4 propels the plot forward, and there’s definitely foreshadowing of things to come. As I keep saying, the story is not for everyone (Okay, the creators have a bit about the beginning about receiving death threats, which may be hyperbole, but seriously, if you think you’ll be offended by the plot, just don’t read it. You’re allowed to be offended, but making death threats to anyone is just not cool. End of PSA.), but if you have a taste for the macabre, don’t mind a little sacrilege, and find unsavory gene technology as fascinating as me, give this series a try! Each issue adds something unique, and I can’t wait to see how things progress.


4.5 Disturbingly Tortured ReGen Employees out of 5