Eesh. I used to love Letter 44 but, after a strong start, the series started to rot halfway through and never recovered. So it goes with Volume 6: Thank God! The End - It’s Finally Over! (I know, I thought it was a weird subtitle too), which isn’t as bad as the previous book but is still terrible and a crummy finale to boot.
So: the “thing” is headed to Earth and neither the crew of the Clarke nor the Builders look to be able to stop it - the apocalypse is here! Or is it…?
About the only thing I liked was the reveal of what the devastating thing headed our way was. I won’t give it away here, and it’s not exactly original anyway (think the movie Prometheus), but I thought it was interesting.
And that’s it for the good - everything else stunk! Charles Souleless completely failed to realise all the cool stuff he’d spent so long setting up: Drum and his transformation, the Builders themselves, Astra the star baby, Carroll the Dubya. It’s like he stopped caring and just went for an uninspired load of boring twaddle instead to wrap it up as quickly as possible.
It’s a really unmemorable ending to a great premise. And, in a play right out of M. Night Shyamalan’s book, Soule inserts himself into the story’s conclusion for no reason - it’s pure ego-stroking - before the time-jump, cop-out ending. Horrible!
I’m glad this is the final book as I don’t think whatever talent Soule once had for good comics, he still has, so the title would’ve just dragged on interminably. I suppose I would still recommend Letter 44 as you do get at least half a good series before it all goes to hell, but, if you do give it a try, don’t expect the same level of quality throughout.
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