Review by Ian Keogh

Fear the Reaper begins by replaying the series opening scene from Don’t Fear the Reaper. Hmm… How significant is that? After the detours found in Eve of Destruction, Jessica Harrow is firmly back in focus as we take a jaunt through the possibilities of who she might have become in other realities. It’s a maguffin, though, as Jessica has two major problems to be sorted out in this final volume of Grim. She has the apparently undying enmity of the personification of Time, and the Original Sin is making a right mess of Earth.

The way Stephanie Phillips has set things up, these are big issues, massive issues in fact, but we know they’re going to be resolved somehow and the fun is in discovering how. And how is when Phillips comes up trumps. In most other horror stories violence would be the answers, lashings and lashings of violence. Here, with forgiveness and sacrifice the order of the day, Phillips takes a different route, and along the way drops in quite the surprising philosophical conundrum halfway through, one to which there is no universal answer. It occurs over the strongest chapter in the strongest volume, which comes complete with a sort of false ending.

While he gets away with using previously drawn pages at the start, Flaviano again steps up to the plate and knocks every page of art out of the park. As noted, Fear the Reaper is unconventional horror material, even for a series where personalities have been prioritised, and it requires greater subtlety from the art than before. Flaviano delivers, and Rico Renzi’s colours complement the drawing perfectly.

The conclusion to the third chapter is partially false because we see Jessica again, but differently, while the actual ending is glorious. Isn’t it great when everything comes together in a good series to make the final volume the best? It so rarely happens, but Grim hits that sweet spot.