It happens to every ongoing title sooner or later: the first crap book, and Sasquatch is Manifest Destiny’s first stinker!
The volume alternates between Lewis and Clark’s expedition in the present, 1804, and the past, 1801, where we see what happened to the previous expedition out west which left only one survivor, Captain Helm. We spend most of the book with Helm, watching his descent into madness and his group slowly dying… and that’s it.
Sasquatch is in dire need of a story! I feel like Helm’s narrative could’ve been done in a single issue, particularly as most of it is largely irrelevant and not in the least bit compelling. There’s some possible foreshadowing for what awaits Lewis and Clark when they reach the Pacific but this book basically boils down to how the President got the skull of a cyclops that we saw in an earlier book - six overwritten issues for that! It’s not worth the slog.
Matthew Roberts’ art and Owen Gieni’s colours though are as beautiful as always - the rural vistas are stunning and the Sasquatch designs are interesting. Like every volume in the series, this book is full of absolutely wonderful visuals throughout.
Unfortunately Manifest Destiny, Volume 4: Sasquatch is one helluva tedious read that does a lot of mundane world-building at the expense of any semblance of an entertaining story. A disappointing entry in the series - here’s hoping Chris Dingess picks up the pace in the next book!
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