Infidel #5

INFIDEL is to horror comics what GET OUT is to horror movies; a perfect example of the genre viewed through a remarkably socially aware lens. The entire creative team should be immensely proud of what theyve created here, fleshing out a million dollar elevator pitch like racist ghosts into something utterly unforgettable. Read Full Review

It's difficult to complain about Infidel #5. The only reason not to buy this issue, or any of the preceding ones, is if you want to live in a world where this comic and its creators go on forever. Infidel is a comic to be studied and celebrated. Read Full Review

Infidel is easily the scariest comic on the stands right now, let alone one of the best horror comics of the year. This book will chill you to the bone in more ways than one. Words of advice: Don't read this before bed. These ghosts will haunt you long after you put the comic down. Read Full Review

This is an entertaining and thought-provoking book with beautiful art. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy horror and mysticism mixed with some powerful lessons about how humans treat each other. The creativity of the writer shines in their ability to hit subjects head on while representing the issues with complexity and sensitivity. This is a book about the transformative power of relationships and loyalty. Read Full Review

Don't go in the basement. Never go in the basement. Read Full Review

Infidel is the best kind of horror story where what is real and what is not real are barely distinguishable from one another. Fears have consequences, so maybe their manifestations are also more than just imagination. Read Full Review

A strong ending that reveals how bigotry is just as disgusting as demons, although maybe they are closely tied. Read Full Review

Underneath that horror shell, the author tackles some serious topics - racism, religion, gender, self-doubt, and trust. It is a book that I will gladly suggest to anyone, be they fans of horror or not. Read Full Review

Infidel #5 is a rough book to make it through, as it reinforces how truly borked everything is. Also, its hard to get through because its monsters are frigging terrifying. Pornsak Pichetshote finishes the story off with confidence and painful admissions about the state of our world. Plus, Campbell and Villarrubia make sure the book finishes in artistic style. This one gets a final recommendation. Give it a read. Read Full Review

The final issue delivers on what readers would expect from a horror comic while also interjecting the politics of hatred and racism, yet the series didn't entirely stick the landing. Read Full Review

A disappointing outcome to a series that I have enjoyed up until now. The art in this closing installment continues to have its urban charm, but the story fell apart for me. A lost opportunity, but I'd return for another arc of books set in this world; an imperfect series rather than a bad one, but not a good closing issue.6.1/10 Read Full Review

Bill Blaze

Jul 21, 2018

Good enough ending for me. I'm not sure how else you would end a book dealing with the supernatural. We find out the big reveal and it's almost comical if not so tragic. Great series nonetheless.

mrDovydas

Jul 19, 2018

Great closure, even if not as scary as some of the previous issues were. This was a great miniseries and I definitely recommend everyone to read it - it tackles a lot of issues you would not expect from a horror book.

Matthew K

Jul 25, 2018

It's the Alpha and Omega, really. I didn't really know what to expect, at the end of Infidel. If anything, the entire plot and setting of Infidel is built on uncertainty: of how far your prejudices affect your reality, on how well the characters perceive reality, on -- as one of the characters in this issue put it in another context -- perceiving "appearances over truth." There has been nothing comfortable, or reassuring about Infidel and it renains so, even to the very end. It is in this issue that we find out how the entire mess began, and just what those demon spirits may actually be: how the feathers that appear in Issue #1 may be more than just ifrit or dijnn, of a sign of a paradise denied. It's actually quite horrible what t hose beings might be, or might have been when you look at the hints and realize that those twisted shapes of bile and slurs may just be more than deformed abstractions of hatred. Especially when you see the thing that could be imp ... but probably didn't start out that way. That, and when you see just what Pornsak Pichetshote does with the word and concept of "Faith," and just the shivers that travel down your back when you take all those creative connotations into consideration. When you look at how the last issue ended, and how Tom reacts to Medina and how he finds her -- and she even attempts to deal with the basement -- even that entire sequence of events is incredibly fucking twisted, and no one gets away from these demons and their influence in this weaker part of reality that Arthur Quinn, or something left behind. No one looks innocent here, and perhaps that's the point. Perhaps that's why the Infidel creative team decided to end the story, to shift the character perspectives from Aisha to Medina: and the decisions that Medina makes at the very end of the narrative. Hatred does warp a relationship, it does cost some lives, but ... There is light at the end of this story. Infidel essentially shows you that no one is perfect in this world. Everyone is messy and imperfect, and all the more so when they face true evil: especially an evil where "hate's just like everything else, and sometimes it evolves too, in forms we'd never predict." The combination of epistolary narrative between differing news and Wikipedia as well as folklore accounts, as well as Aisha's own communication with the elementary Persepolis aesthetic of Medina calls back to mind what Aaron Campbell said to José Villarrubia about fairy tale endings no longer being relatable. But, perhaps, as I mentioned before this is less a fairy tale and more of its dark predecessor, its ancestor if you will: that of a contemporary, urban folk tale where there is a cost to everything that is done, that nothing is perfect, that people make mistakes, but how even some of the most ignorant, biased people informed by prejudice can change, or show another side -- that humans can show another side -- if you just have "Faith" in them. In the end, Infidel ends where it begins. There are never happy endings when a story never ends, even and especially at the end of a miniseries that deals with prejudice and the cycles of human behaviour and understanding. What can I say: it's been quite a ride. I both anticipate, and dread, how this series will be adapted to the big screen. Take a bow, Infidel Creative Team. more