Amy’s encounter with the rogue cops brings Bella to her. But can she prevent more gruesome deaths from happening? Find out in The Ribbon Queen #4 from AWA Studios!

THE RIBBON QUEEN #4

Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Jacen Burrows
Colorist: Dan Brown
Publisher: AWA Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 25, 2023

Previously in The Ribbon Queen: Amy Sun has now seen three police officers who met a horrific end slashed to ribbons. She talks to Clayton, telling him about her own shooting incident before confiding in how now she has had to lie about the new deaths. But Clayton believes her, and shows her a video his boss sent, a video of the dead Bella getting up and walking out of the morgue. Later, at the bar, Clayton meets a man called Geary who says something about putting “her majesty” back in her box. This gets Clayton’s attention, but Geary is evasive about further questions. Then Clayton passes out. Sun wants to find Bella and figures she can find her if goes to where more corrupt cops are gathered. She crashes their poker game. They accuse her of killing the other cops. She challenges them to tell her how she could have managed it and talks longer, buying time. Then two of the men spontaneously have some of their skin stripped off in ribbons.

AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE STALKS ITS PREY

The Ribbon Queen #4 opens with Bella standing in the doorway at the poker game. One of the cops is on the floor, his scalp lacerated. The other cops recognize Bella and that she was dead. Bella talks about feeling “her” circling closer, and Amy begs her not to let it happen. Bella talks of her own death, and how the fractured pieces of her skull keep moving within her head. She tells the cops that “she” wants them because of something Bella saw.

Bella, when she was still alive, wanted to corner Connolly and get him to talk. She followed him one night and stumbles upon him meeting with a group of cops gathered around a young, blonde woman who was plainly beaten up. Her name is Nadja, and the cops know her, the implication being prostitution. Now they want her to make a movie for them, one she can share with other women, to tell them to do what they say. Nadja, terrified, says what they want. Then Bella talks about how the Ribbon Queen arose behind her eyes. Amy walks out of the room.

At his apartment, Clayton is in the bathtub, bleeding profusely. Geary sits near him, threading a needle. He apologizes to Clayton and explains that he cannot kill him and talks about how the meat has to live. Clayton, he says, is his best chance of getting close to “her.” Clayton bleeds even more profusely and Geary puts the stopper in the drain.

Amy turns back. She wants to find out more about where the cops are keeping the girls. The cops ask if it will save them. Bella tells them it won’t and tells Amy to wait outside. Amy goes out. The force that has been killing people reduces them slowly to ribbons as Bella stands by impassively. Amy tries calling her captain.

Riding the subway back home, Amy talks to Bella. At least Amy can see and hear her; the dead woman is not visible to anyone else. Amy knows there are problems within the force. She does not think that this is the solution. Bella says she must have known that tonight’s outcome was likely. Amy wanted to help people like Nadja. Bella counters that the police have not been helping. But Amy doesn’t think that horrible deaths are the best way to help either.

Their conversation is interrupted, and when they start again, Bella talks about her abduction, the aftermath, the nightmares. That is when she first heard the voice and felt a conviction that she could find peace and get away from the men who plagued her. When she heard the voice, the nightmares stopped. And she speaks of Connolly’s death as well.

FROM POIGNANT TO NIGHTMARISH

There is so much tension in the art of The Ribbon Queen #4. Bella takes center stage, and while she does not at all come across as a zombie, there is something unearthly about her. She looks as though she is dead. Her skin is pale and grayish with deeper than usual shadows. But even more than that, her expressions seem flattened. She lived through a multitude of horrors in her life, but those emotions are for the living. She is a harbinger of something dreadful. The tensions ramps up to the point where the rogue group of cops is killed, and at the peak is a wonderful panel of Bella’s face framed by bloody strips of flesh. We don’t see vengeance in her eyes or anger, just the calm of a dreadful inevitability.

The juxtaposition of the horror element against the chilling reality of police corruption is stunning. Sun carries with her the additional struggle of being caught up in that corruption. She made a horrible mistake, but it was covered up and she got away with it, even though she knows full well she was in the wrong. This reality is part of her life, and she cannot let it go. Instead of gradually coming to grips with it, now she has been thrown into an even greater dilemma. How can she strike to make the right decision when even her presence near the right people can bring death down upon them?

BOTTOM LINE: A HORRIFIC AND THRILLING READ

The Ribbon Queen #4 deftly takes a horrible situation and makes it infinitely worse for everyone involved. Amy Sun has made difficult decisions in her life and not always good ones. Now it seems as though she is rapidly running out of good options.

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