Swords, guns, ancient lore, and pink comets. It’s just another crazy night in Las Vegas for a pair of sisters. Your Major Spoilers review of This Ends Tonight #1 from Image Comics awaits!

THIS ENDS TONIGHT #1

Writers: Gerry Duggan, Kelvin Mao, Robert Windom
Artist: Jae Lee
Colorist: June Chung
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: July 16th, 2025

Previously in This Ends Tonight: A pair of sisters has a shocking family secret that goes back further than anyone could imagine. On the younger one’s 21st birthday, an assassination plot is put into action and the two suddenly find themselves on the run, fighting for their life.

THE PINK SPARK

This Ends Tonight #1 opens at a Las Vegas male strip club with sisters Anna and Katie celebrating the latter’s 21st birthday. Anna then notices a strange mark on one of the dancers’ arms and quickly springs into action to kill the dancer, just as the DJ opens fire on the two. They fight their way out of the club and into the streets, where the chase continues. They manage to make their way to a sushi restaurant, where Anna is able to fill Katie in on the history of their family and how it ties to a mysterious pink comet that had disappeared many years ago. They are then attacked by a woman who looks a lot like Anna. Katie is able to get a way and sneaks into a club. She’s able to fight off more attackers. As she continues to escape, she suddenly finds herself in a new place that begins to put into question what is real and what isn’t.

STRUGGLING TO EXECUTE ON AMBITIONS

This Ends Tonight #1 advertises itself as being the first of three interconnected stories, which isn’t a complete lie, but the level of interconnectedness that is on display here is fairly shallow and so far, comes off as more or less cameos. Now, it’s not completely fair to judge the whole concept of the series based on this one issue, but this issue has its own problems. As the story plays out, a big theme that emerges is what is real and what isn’t. Unfortunately, the way this is presented is to basically start throwing one scene after the other without any thought put towards how they should naturally follow each other, then strange things just start happening. Then it’s wrapped up with a sort of cliffhanger, gotcha moment. It becomes more accurately defined as incoherent rather than intriguing or mind-bending as it continues on. This Ends Tonight #1 does have a lot of good things going for it, too, though. It’s paced very well. Even when it has to slow down to tell a bit of backstory, it’s only for a moment or two, then it’s right back to the breakneck speed that it establishes on the first page. There’s also a lot of clever bits of violence, and strong fight sequences that incorporate blood and gore in fun ways.

SLICK, VIOLENT, AND STONE-FACED

The big star of This Ends Tonight #1 has to be the visuals, particularly when it comes to depicting violence and action. These moments feel stylish and cool. The whole sequence with the traffic spike strip was really silly and fun. The panel shape and layout used in this is a hit-and-miss sort of thing. There are some pages that look neat, and the weird shapes actually add to the visual appeal of the page. In other times it looks like it’s just used to make the comic look different than normal comics. The faces, though, are lackluster throughout. There’s very little emotion shown and especially as we get to the tail end, it looks like everyone is stuck with the same blank, deadeye stare, regardless of what’s going on, which doesn’t help sell the tension at all.

BOTTOM LINE: A FLAWED COMIC THAT MAY BE REDEEMED LATER

Based on how this issue and series are advertised, it’s clear that This Ends Tonight #1 is supposed to be taken as a part of something bigger. But, that doesn’t explain some of the problems with coherency and the stuttering way that one scene rolls into the other. Visually, the book is interesting and stylish, but a lack of emotion puts a damper on the whole thing. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

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