Cover by Andrea Olimpieri.
Here’s a review of a newer property, “The Evil Within: The Interlude,” an interquel between The Evil Within and The Evil Within 2 by Bethesda Softworks and directed by Shinji Mikami. The writer of this interquel is Ryan O’Sullivan. The artwork credit goes to Szymon Kudranski and Damien Worm, with additional coloring by Guy Major. The letterer on this tie-in is Simon Bowland. The publisher behind this miniseries is Titan Comics.
As a note first off, this review comes from someone who is a big fan of the game The Evil Within, and someone who has been waiting for more of the series since its inception (pun about mental worlds intended). As such, it will have a bit of bias, and that goes both ways.
First, let’s be absolutely clear for people hoping to have closure on the cliffhanger at the end of the original game: there isn’t any. This miniseries, known as “The Interlude,” is meant to lead people into Sebastian Castellanos’ attempt to find his daughter Lily with the likely use of the resources of the mysterious MOBIUS organization that created the mind-connecting “STEM” network in the first place. As disappointing as this discrepancy may be, hopefully something will come of the goings on with Leslie Withers et cetera in the game of The Evil Within 2.
The use of flashbacks is very well done in this issue. O’Sullivan mixes in the early months since Lily Castellanos’ disappearance with Sebastian’s current investigation into the nursery rhyme serial killer in such a way that the reader can be as disoriented as the protagonist, putting them into his perspective with the mix between his alcoholism and his post-traumatic stress disorder after the truly nightmarish hellscape of Ruben “Ruvik” Victoriano’s control of the STEM network. His since-separated wife, Myra Hanson, has inconsistent personalities between scenes, but that is an intentional cue that he is remembering things in weird orders, especially since he speaks of his current case while she speaks of Lily’s disappearance as if it happened only a few months ago, rather than several years.
Sebastian’s summary of the STEM system to the police shrink is obviously bizarre, but it more or less sums up the game’s ideas without giving too much away. The two-page analysis is well thought out, with slivers of memory coming through in thin panels in the background to the two walking on a panel-less foreground of white, indicating that the memories are the important parts, not their current location. The imagery itself is also handled well, shifting between the more abstract ones such as the glowing stained glass, an image of a Haunted (zombie) with its glowing eyes, foreboding scenery such as the dark forest and a snippet of one of the mental towns, and, most disturbingly, photorealistic interpretations of the gore of the place, with several eyes spread out amongst a mass of bloody meat.
However, two things stick out in the discussion: Sebastian doesn’t mention the eventual fate of Juli Kidman at all, and also believes that Joseph Oda is dead. The former is easily explained as him either not knowing what happened to her or him not wanting to hear from her or speak to her at all after his (to a certain degree irrational) hatred of her actions. The latter is somewhat odder, but perhaps can be identified as him truly not knowing that Oda might not be dead, just a captive or otherwise victim of MOBIUS. Or is his role in the game being retconned? It’s unclear, but perhaps will be expanded upon in either later issues or the game to come.
Sebastian’s tendency to “lose time” plays into how scenes pan out over the course of his investigation. Aside from the aforementioned flashbacks, he also falls into various degrees of hallucination, each of which are given their own types of illustration.
When Sebastian hallucinates being a part of the video tape he is watching within his flashback to his argument with Myra, the artwork turns to a primarily grayscale, grainy, and at times blurry filter, akin to an old video, including a timestamp in the bottom right corner of each panel. Furthermore, the linework on Sebastian in this scene is much leaner, giving him a gaunt visage. The fact that he actually can’t see color in this scene further enhances the reader-protagonist immersion, especially when the killer has red on his shirt, shocking readers to distraction by its sudden nature.
On the other hand, when searching the house of Jill, one of the killer’s victims, a type of incense (likely taken from MOBIUS) also changes the scene significantly from Sebastian’s perspective. Again, he is much leaner, to the point of almost unhealthily gaunt with the shading, but the coloring is very different. The orange colors bring to mind the artwork on “Gotham by Midnight,” an ethereal glow that gives impressions of a flame, not unlike the Ruvik’s STEM and its focus on flames. Furthermore, the lettering changes significantly in this hallucination, with a more stable white background and black lettering giving way to a black background, white lettering, and a more shakily drawn speech bubble. Even the writing on the walls is creepier in this light, fading out on the walls, with Jill looking not unlike the monstrous version of “Laura” from the first game, and the likely post-traumatic stress triggered appearance of the “Keeper” monster. Even the doors change in this hallucination, from normal wooden ones to those of metal and barbed wire seen in the indoor sections of the STEM network.
In all, the use of these elements makes Sebastian Castellanos into a far more sympathetic figure than some saw him as in the first game, by moving away from his more insensitive or otherwise skewed behaviors (such as insulting people for suggesting he should concentrate on keeping everyone safe, as is his job, or blaming other people for doing things that he did far worse than in the same situations) and concentrating on his trauma as a source of flaws instead.
On the other hand, Juli Kidman’s part of the story is a lot more stable, harkening back to how she knows full well of MOBIUS on account of being one of their agents. Her portion is written as more of an after-action report, complete with a lettering scheme that is not unlike that of a typewriter, in addition to having classified information such as parts of coded identifier or surnames of agents stricken out with a black mark across them. There isn’t any dialogue at all in her portion, focusing instead on what was really happening in the various crime scenes as she visits them. In a sense, her use in this story seems to be a way to give a solid framework from which to view Sebastian’s instability. To a degree, the calmness of her writing helps to ease the reader into the idea of the story being one of a conspiracy rather than a serial killer, widening the reader’s view beyond that of a Krimson City police officer.
As an antagonist, Samuel Dista works very well. As a rogue MOBIUS agent who is also engaging in serial killing, he fits into the purview of both Castellanos and Kidman. His general appearance is one that could be misidentified as that of the Keeper under certain hallucinogens, but also different enough to make people think of him as some kind of cultist given his obsession with certain marks (seen as likely MOBIUS marks from Beacon Mental Hospital in the first game). However, he is far more intelligent than someone with some random compulsion, and is actually seeking out MOBIUS agents who happen to have names fitting into a nursery rhyme scheme, such as the two victims seen in this issue, Jack and Jill.
The cool blue coloring, limited action, and lack of dialogue work well together, making the last image of this issue particularly shocking. The corpse, whose identity seems to be a character from earlier in the issue (difficult to tell as it is), definitely sends the message that this won’t just be a trip down a horrific memory lane.
Looking forward to the second issue of this miniseries, coming October 4, as well as the game of The Evil Within 2, coming October 13 (Friday the 13th).
