Amy gets help in putting a stop to some of the police corruption. Now it is time for her to hold up her end of the bargain – but how? Find out in The Ribbon Queen #8 from AWA Studios!

THE RIBBON QUEEN #8

Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Jacen Burrows and Guillermo Ortego
Colorist: Dan Brown
Letterer: Rob Steen
Publisher: AWA Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 28, 2024

Previously in The Ribbon Queen: Amy finds Bella at Brian’s place. Bella has a warning for her. She tells her that Clayton is not himself anymore. Something else is wearing his skin, a nameless man whose lot in life is to destroy the Queen’s vessel. They go to Clayton’s apartment and find the rest of his body, a pool of blood, tissue, and bones, in the bathtub. His flesh is still warm, and his heart is beating. Amy realizes that she told Clayton everything that has been going on. Bella makes a deal to take care of the secret prostitution ring and Bella will be done. But someone else will need to be the Queen’s new vessel. Bella and the Queen hold up their end of the bargain. The being wearing Clayton’s skin comes for Amy. Bella tells her to kill him immediately. She doesn’t, and he stabs Bella.

THE RECKONING

The Ribbon Queen #8 opens on a flashback to Bella’s funeral. Then we reach the present and Amy stands at Bella’s grave, talking to her. Whatever happened, she is alive.

The scene goes to where the last issue left off. Amy knows the man is not Clayton. He says she can call him Geary. He explains that he stabbed her with the original murder weapon, and killing the vessel is the only way to send the Queen back. He has a deal for Amy. Everyone just wants the world to return to normal. Amy recognizes that he means a cover-up, ironically like the police have been doing.

He tells her a story related to the Queen’s origin. The story spread about the deaths in the forest until someone came to investigate and found all the skeletons. He considers all the panic and pain of the place and feels they cannot let it become a place of power. They need men who can take that power and channel it in their way. He insists that the Queen does not actually protect women. Her power is more like a loose, rampant blunt instrument. Bella can be buried again. No more weird deaths will happen. Everything will go back to normal. This is how the cycle goes.

Amy feels this keenly, the attraction of all of this going away. But that only lasts until next time. What if she complicates things? She shoots him, but only hits his ear. He grabs her and swears at her for messing things up. He twists her arm behind her back, and then changes to a stranglehold. He demands that Amy call to her and let her in so that the Queen can put an end to him.

Amy refuses, but the Queen saves her anyway, She comes on her own terms to start shredding Geary’s skin, which also kills Clayton’s body. Amy gets up and pushes Geary out the window. He falls onto a car below. She goes down to the street. His neck is broken, but he is still alive and still wondering how they can mutually get out of this situation. Amy pinches off his air supply.

She continues to tell her story at Bella’s grave. Geary was right. Everyone did all they could sweep things under the rug little by little. Incidents were whittled down to nothing. And Amy is left with the memory of a story that no one will ever believe.

DISQUIETING AND SYMBOLIC

Setting the opening with Amy at Bella’s grave in The Ribbon Queen #8 tells us that Amy survives whatever happens, but I like that it does not give away the deepest secrets of the ending. As the story establishes that no one believes, or wants to believe, the horrific things that have happened, Amy has no one left that she can talk to. Bella is finally dead for good. But Bella is the only person who could have understood what Amy is going through now. This framing gives us the impression that her memories continue to come back, that she wonders if she made the correct choice. But the truth of the matter is that perhaps there were no good choices to make.

Blood features prominently, but not just from injuries. The women who died at the hands of men experience an afterlife where they tread water in a sea of blood. They can see others around them but are close to no one. It is from this sea that the Ribbon Queen chooses her vessel. It is into this sea that Amy briefly plunges. But another reminder of the Queen are the ribbons of flesh, and we also see those around Clayton’s apartment. At first, they just look like blood spatters from Clayton’s encounter with Geary, but then we see they look more like tendrils of some odd growth clinging to the walls.

BOTTOM LINE: A MODERN GRAND GUIGNOL

The Ribbon Queen #8 is a heck of a conclusion that is thought-provoking right up to the end. It is not often easy to make the world a better place, and the consequences can be unexpectedly dire.

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