Vin and Reynolds are closing in on the spider, while Dani wants to get proof that it exists. Can Godino still manage to foil their plans? Find out in All Eight Eyes from Dark Horse Comics!
ALL EIGHT EYES #4
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artist: Piotr Kowalski
Colorist: Brad Simpson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Editor: Daniel Chabon
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 19, 2023
Previously in All Eight Eyes: While Vin and Reynolds kill the huge spider in the school, Dani Dominguez calls the police. Reynolds threatens Dani and Vin lays into him. The three of them leave the school, and Vin parts ways with Reynolds again. Vin crashes at his friend Amy’s place but having a spider nightmare drives him to leave and find Reynolds again. Dani sneaks into work on her day off, feigning sickness when she sees Godino. She is there to talk to Ernie. Reynolds finally shares his story. He lost his child to a giant spider, and going after it triggered a gas explosion that destroyed his home and killed his wife.
INTO THE SPIDER’S LAIR
All Eight Eyes #4 opens with Vin and Reynolds busy with spiders, but they soon realize that their prey is all too small. They’re looking for an enormous spider, which would need a lot of space for hiding. Vin thinks of the abandoned subway stations, but Reynolds tells him they are too hard to break into. But Vin has a trick up his sleeve, or at least he has Dani’s lost wallet.
Dani, having now seen another giant spider, tries to talk Ernie into going public with the body in the freezer. But he is so close to retirement that he does not want to take the risk. Just then, she gets a call from Vin who tells her they are looking for an even bigger spider if only they could get into the Old City Hall station. She talks Ernie into coming with her only to let them in. Neither of them realizes that Godino is listening at the door. He hears mention of his name and the old school and immediately assumes she plans to get him into trouble.
Dani and Ernie meet Vin and Reynolds at the entrance to the old subway station in the middle of the night. Ernie unlocks the door and the other three, along with Possum, descend into the darkness. The station itself is closed, but trains still come though. Vin smells something as they walk along near the tracks, and they find a pile of corpses tangled in spider webs. Something tells me they may be onto something here. Dani pulls out her video recorder and gets to work.
As Ernie keeps watch outside, Godino arrives with a couple of policemen. He demands that Ernie let them in so he can foil Dominguez’s “terrorist plot.” He knows Dani is going to expose him for trying to make a little profit off his deals, so he plans to set it up so he can “discover” her setting up an anthrax attack. Ernie lets him through.
The cops stumble upon the spider first, and it does not end well for them. Godino runs from it and into Vin and the others. He recognizes Dani and swears she is going to regret her actions just in time to meet with some poetic justice from the spider. His death is not a complete surprise, but it still brings some satisfaction.
But this is it – this is the big spider that started all the trouble. This is Reynolds’ white whale. Finally, he can avenge his family. And the hope of the others is that, if they can document this, perhaps people will finally open their eyes to the problems that exist all around them.
I do appreciate well horror stories can be used to provide a metaphor for real world issues, and All Eight Eyes does this in a way where any number of problems would fit the narrative. But it can also be read as a really creepy story about clever giant spiders.
SPINNING WEBS, SPINNING LIES
All Eight Eyes #4 never loses touch with reality when it comes to the art. As fantastic as the giant spiders are, they feel plausible by how they are presented and by the spaces they are found in. Reynolds and Vin are homeless and they’re surviving in abandoned spaces, spaces that are decidedly like those the spiders prefer.
I really love the old subway station, though. The entrance looks like any other station, except that the doors are locked. But when Vin and his cohorts enter, the eye is drawn first to the broad stairs showing us that this was once a very busy place. Then we notice the weighty architecture, the broad arches holding the tunnel up, and the elegant brickwork, as well as the rubble and garbage on the floor. And even though we know the spider is destined to appear, we get distracted just enough that’s its arrival is a surprise.
BOTTOM LINE: NOT SEEING THE PROBLEMS BEFORE US
All Eight Eyes #4 is a fitting ending to a story that both terrifies us and makes us think.
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All Eight Eyes #4
Vin and Reynolds finally find the lair of the biggest spider of them all.
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By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.