Sherlock Holmes Moriarty Lives #4 Review

 

Betray, betray away…..

The tenuous strains that have bound Moriarty to Udo are tested in a series of who can outsmart the other.

It all comes fairly rushed as the middling setup of the first three issues has given way to a frantic climax. Too much happens in this issue that needed to be laid out more evenly.

While Liss is able to construct a manipulative Moriarty, his deductive skills go for a toss in this. His carefully crafted environment falls away a little too easily.

Furuzono’s artwork doesn’t do much for me though. His faces are too diluted and disproportionate. And he really fails at crowd scenes, which needed to be good for a major plot point.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…………………..

The gruesome spectacle that appeared on the last page of the previous issue is revealed to not be one of the Baron’s works, but Moriarty disguised as his henchman Walther.

Apparently, the Baron wanted some murders and such but ‘Walther’ stole some of his experiments and made a tableau (made me think of Hannibal for some reason).

The Baron is displeased at this unauthorized action and meddling in his personal effects, but is quick to take control and manipulate the people into believing it was Satan’s work and he can be their savior.

Not all townspeople are convinced though, as Mayor Odermatt promises to look into the circumstances, threatening to put the Baron behind bars if he’s found to be behind this. This doesn’t go down well with the Baron and he orders the Mayor’s murder courtesy Walther.

I like that Liss didn’t make it so easy for the Baron to get what he wanted. Crafting in a dissenting figure helps get the point across that the Baron doesn’t hold full sway over the town. Though given the Baron’s power hungry nature, I’m surprised that such an independent high-ranking voice is still there – and not just another puppet of the Baron.

At night, Moriarty and the Baroness make their way to the Baron’s secret chambers. The safe that he sees seems familiar to him and he promises that he will take the money and her with him.

Only problem – Udo (who’s now working as a servant boy in the Baron’s quarters) watching from the shadows.

Apparently, as we see an hour later, Udo and Sara (from the house where Moriarty is staying) are now thick as thieves and after this sight, Udo’s confidence in Moriarty has gone down. Sara uses this to prod Udo into taking the money right under the villain’s nose.

I love how everyone is manipulating someone else in this issue – the Baron manipulates the town, Moriarty is manipulating the Baroness and Sara is now doing the same to Udo.

Things start to get rushed from this point on.

Next day, Moriarty in the guise of Walther comes across Udo for the first time at the Baron’s place. It seems Udo has purposely done this and it is proven true when later, Walther asks for the boy and Udo forces him to assure that they will be emptying the safe together.

Another betrayal is in store though as Udo and Sara arrives two hours before he is to meet Moriarty and attempt to empty the safe using the keys his mother left him.

Sadly for them, this proves fatal as the Baron and his right hand man Gustav arrive at the scene. Though Sara manages to escape and Udo seems to fatally stab Gustav, the latter is rounded up by the Baron’s men.

Sara arrives at her house to tell her husband that the Baron knows of their involvement and starts planning their escape.

Moriarty is trying to delay the Mayor’s murder (not for any noble reason. Just that he doesn’t kill on another’s whims) at the pub, but is forced out by another of the Baron’s men and on his way out, noticed a black-eyed Udo being dragged in.

Moriarty is now at his lowest – abandoned by his accomplice, left out in the cold (he arrives to find that Sara and co are gone) and now forced to undertake a task he very much doesn’t want to.

Even as Moriarty breaks in to the Mayor’s house and points a gun at him, back at the Baron’s, the owner has set up a mirror house so that Udo can see the Baron dissecting his body.

Sick.

SPOILERS END………………..

Though I love how trust is a term lost on the cast here, and everyone’s trying to backstab or manipulate the other, the pace is disconcerting.

It feels like this issue could have been broken into two and the third act of this book does nothing to dissuade that notion.

The artwork is nothing to rave about.

So, I give it 6.0 out of 10.

+Well done manipulative elements

+Udo’s evolution has been done nicely

-Artwork is barely passable

-The third act is rushed

-Moriarty is befuddled all too easily