Un año después de los acontecimientos en Archer's Peak, Erica Slaughter reaparece en Nuevo México para encargarse del caso de una niña que ha visto un nuevo tipo de monstruo, uno con implicaciones aterradoras. Pero la Orden de San Jorge no perdona, ni olvida, y que Erica rompiera sus lazos con la Casa Slaughter está a punto de tener consecuencias mortales.
Erica Slaughter regresa en el siguiente volumen del grandioso éxito del autor James Tynion IV (The Nice House on the Lake, Wynd), ganador del Premio Eisner; el dibujante Werther Dell'Edera (Razorblades), galardonado en Lucca; y el colorista Miquel Muerto (House of Slaughter). Recopila Something is Killing the Children núms. 21 a 25.
"Hay algo matando niños ha lanzado un nuevo capítulo de la mejor manera posible, y sigue siendo una de las series más intrigantes y cautivadoras del cómic actual".—
Prior to his first professional work, Tynion was a student of Scott Snyder's at Sarah Lawrence College. A few years later, he worked as for Vertigo as Fables editor Shelly Bond's intern. In late 2011, with DC deciding to give Batman (written by Snyder) a back up feature, Tynion was brought in by request of Snyder to script the back ups he had plotted. Tynion would later do the same with the Batman Annual #1, which was also co-plotted by Snyder. Beginning in September 2012, with DC's 0 issue month for the New 52, Tynion will be writing Talon, with art by Guillem March. In early 2013 it was announced that he'd take over writing duties for Red Hood and the Outlaws in April.
Tynion is also currently one of the writers in a rotating team in the weekly Batman Eternal series.
A NEW something is out there killing the children. And it missed one! But seriously. The one you forgot to eat is a really fucking obnoxious child. Go ahead and kill it, sir.
Erica Slaughter is in a new town, with a new monster, a new set of characters, and her old plushy demon-stuffed octopus. The same sort of things are happening that happened last time. Children and families are dying gruesome deaths, no adults can see the monsters, law enforcement has zero clues, and things look bleak. Except this time Erica is on the run from the Order of St. George and operating without their funding, and the child she is trying to save is nothing like the little boy last time around that you prayed would make it. Oh no, you actively want the monster to polish this one off.
Or at least, I did. Maybe I'm just a heartless bitch and other readers felt sorry for her. She did have a bit of trauma there finding her family had been thoroughly ripped apart and eaten by a monster that had an eyeball in its stomach and a mouth for an armpit. And yet...it somehow didn't seem as though that was her tipping point. It seemed as though she was quite a bit of an asshole beforehand and this just made it worse. I guess my point is that I hate being around obnoxious kids, so having to spend so much of the book around this one pushed my enjoyment level down quite a bit.
The human villain in this is sufficiently villain-y to make you loathe her. Almost too much, but maybe not quite a caricature? Not sure yet. I'll give her some time to grow on me. Anyway. Not my favorite volume. But since I've enjoyed this title so much and this is the start of a new arc, I'll definitely give Tynion the benefit of the doubt on everything for now.
This is a collection of a new arc in this series. I guess you could use this as a starting point but you would be doing yourself a disservice as the first arc was amazing. In this one, we visit a new town with a new monster but the same old Erica tracking down the monster.
I have been vocal saying how fantastic this series is and I was excited to start a new arc in this series. While this didn't wow me like the beginning of the first arc I still really enjoyed the first collection. Once again Erica is battling a demon. The problem is that she has no backing this time and that plot could lead to some interesting things. With a new arc we also have to have new characters. The victim in this new arc is a brat and following her is a little bit of a chore. We bring along a character from the spinoff comic and I loved this. We also are introduced to a new character who is our antagonist. I liked her introduction and she was a highlight to the first collection. Once again the art is perfect. It is muted and it just adds to the overall atmosphere. I especially loved the dialogue in this collection. So realistic.
This is easily one of my favorite series. It hasn't missed for me yet. And this writing team sure knows how to write a concluding issue. I remember the concluding issue of the first collection blew me away. This one did the same. These writers excel at the concept of a cliffhanger. They succeeded once again and I want the next collection now.
Quinta entrega de este exitoso cómic. No era yo muy de leer cómics hasta que conocí tanto esta serie como al mangaka Junji Ito. Rendida a sus pies estoy 🖤
Hemos llegado a un punto en el que veremos a una Erica cada vez más fuerte, sola y decidida a hacer frente a todo tipo de terrores, no solo a un nuevo tipo de criatura, que inevitablemente me ha recordado a parte del imaginario de una serie de la que somos muy fans en casa; Stranger Things, sino a monstruos humanos que probablemente sean mucho peores y los cuales tendrán muchísimo que contarnos en futuros volúmenes.
Tenemos también una nueva localización; concretamente Tribulation en Nuevo México. Con un nuevo monstruo que acecha en las termas... 😱
Se intuye que aún quedan muchas cosas por pasar. Recientemente han publicado un sexto volumen con el que me voy a poner de inmediato, pero preveo y espero que nos deparen aún muchas más sorpresas en una serie que va a dar mucho juego. No me cabe ninguna duda.
🔝👌🏻Nuevos monstruos, mucho más peligrosos y terroríficos. Más misterios y subtramas interesantes. Más muertes y nuevos personajes. Y sangre, mucha sangre, 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 en una colección que siento que no baja el nivel, sino todo lo contrario.
Muy fan de Erica Slaughter y todo el mundo que la rodea.
Si son de leer este tipo de historias no deberían perdérselos. Ya hay seis publicados por ahora, así que no sé qué va a ser de mi vida en cuanto acabe el último 😭
Well damn that was heartbreaking. Introduction to a new story arc where Erica is back to helping a kid in a new town. However, Erica has disassociated herself from the House of Slaughter and is now trying to do things on her own. Unfortunately, this present issues as it takes away a whole host of resources she’s used to having. Readers also meet a new villain that is determined to kill Erica and anyone that’s helping her. That ending was quite sad. I definitely recommend reading House of Slaughter Vol. 1 before this volume for better context.
6.8/10 New place, same old story. Monsters kill, people grief.
Erica arrives in a town where she meets a girl who's family have been killed by a monster. She knows what she has to do, and that it is going to be difficult. She has done that many times. As always people have hard time trusting her at first. The monster it's even harder to kill and the Order of St. George are not here anymore. Well they are... but not to help.
Good but very similar to the first volume. Seems like a start to something bigger.
2025 Review: Back for a re-read of Something is Killing the Children Vol. 5, and the impact is still powerful. Gabi's arc is a real emotional rollercoaster. You want to shake her for some of her choices, but the raw grief of a teenager who's lost everything is so palpable, you can't help but empathize. Erica's isolated position ratchets up the tension, and the stakes feel incredibly high. This volume plunges you straight into a desperate situation, and the path forward is unclear. Just as excellent as I remembered from my 2022 review.
2022 Review: Another great volume. The series that keeps on giving.
This time we have a new family involved in a murdering by a new creature. It's up to Erica now to find this monster and kill it before they keep killing children and their families. But we have a new kid who hates everyone and everything after what happened to her family. A little shit you might say but I personally love having a character going against the grain and not listening to people because she's still trying to process what even happened to her family. You also have a hunter come into the picture sent by the very people Erica used to work for trying to hunt Erica down.
It's a crazy, fast paced, and fucked up volume with plenty of good moments, brooding, and dealing with emotional damage. After getting the past of Erica in volume four you can really see how much she cares. I'm excited to see what happens next.
A solid start to a new story arc in New Mexico as we are given a ferocious new beastie and scary weird new villain. This series continues to deal harshly with its supporting cast.
Once again, reading as a panel-by-panel ebook makes the experience better since it gets around those sporadic and annoying double page spreads that occasionally cause reading order confusion.
With Erica Slaughter now a lone wolf in her quest to save children from monsters, this new story arc introduces a new terrifying threat with only one person giving her the help she needs to get things done. Except, this time, another terrifying threat, a hunter rather than a monster, or maybe just both, is after her. Another brilliant installment that ends on a thrilling cliffhanger. Keep it up, Tynion IV. Keep it up!
Something is still killing those children, again, for the fifth time.
James Tynion IV’s rather addictive and unputdownable graphic novel series about monsters that only children can see and the monster hunters that are actually worse than the monsters continues in Volume 5 of Something is Killing the Children.
Erica Slaughter is back. She’s gone rogue from the Order of St. George. The higher-ups have hired a super bad-ass killer (from Europe, no less, because apparently European bad-ass killers are way more bad-ass) to hunt Erica and kill her. Because reasons.
A young girl named Gabi is the only member of her family to survive a monster attack. Erica is in town to protect her and everyone else from the monster, which is a new kind, one that looks human. Sort of. Human-ish anyway. The giant eyeball in its chest and its head that opens up into a giant mouth with sharp teeth kind of give it away.
Erica may be in over her head, and when she finds out that her one and only friend in the whole world is killed by the European assassin, things go from bad to worse…
I have to return this tomorrow, but it wasn't hard to basically finish in a sitting.
It's been a bit since Erica cleaned up Archer's Peak and definitely much after the backstory of the previous volume. Now she's in New Mexico dealing with a different type of monster, one who left a single person, Gabi, alive. But meanwhile, Cecilia Slaughter is very much upset with how Erica left the order in the previous volumes and has sent another black mask, Cutter, from across the pond to deal with her.
Honestly, high points for something that I can read so quickly - and not just because it's simple or has a lot of pictures, but because it's engaging. I'm also impressed at how Tynion has deftly twisted the story to being more than just another "monster of the week".
Cambiamos de localización ya que aparece un monstruo en Nuevo México que Erica debe cazar. Y la verdad es que el monstruo nuevo es todavía más terrorífico que el anterior, cosa que parecía difícil. El bicho tiene una apariencia casi humanoide pero despedaza a sus víctimas en cuanto las encuentra y no le hace ascos a nadie.
Pero esta vez mi parte favorita no ha sido la caza, sino la venganza de la Orden de San Jorge, los cuales han decidido darle caza a Erica. Y entra en acción un personajazo increíble, Cutter, una cazadora sangrienta y perturbada, a la que se le pide que remate ese cabo suelto.
Cutter es cruel y caprichosa, no tiene el menor problema en matar a quienes le llevan la contraria, dejando el trabajo de limpieza para el resto de la Orden. Se le permite solo por un motivo, es absolutamente letal, y una torturadora nata. La vemos seguir los pasos de Erica disfrutando de tener carta blanca con tal de que lleve a cabo su misión. El final de este tomo es sangriento y da el pistoletazo de salida al futuro enfrentamiento entre Erica y Cutter. De hecho, Cutter es la mayor amenaza, pero Erica no va a ser capaz de dejar de lado a Gabi, la niña que lo ha perdido todo por culpa del nuevo monstruo que conocemos. Aunque Gabi me ha resultado algo insoportable, la realidad es que ha vivido un shock absoluto al quedarse completamente sola y cuando nos muestran los recuerdos de lo que encontró en su hogar entendemos esos arranques de mal genio que le dan.
Este volumen es más sangriento que los anteriores, aunque eso parecía casi imposible. Se debe a que esconde otro tipo de violencia, la que causa Cutter a su paso, que es explícita y gore. Ya no estamos solo ante las acciones de monstruos sino ante lo peor que puede llegar a hacer el ser humano. El diseño de Cutter también me ha gustado mucho, sus rasgos ya nos muestran que es una mujer dura, centrada en la misión que le encomiendan y sus ojos son tremendamente inquietantes transmitiendo que hay algo oscuro en ella. El final es totalmente explosivo y dramático, no solo porque Erica es consciente de hasta qué punto la Orden está dispuesta a deshacerse de ella, sino también porque sus actos tienen unos daños colaterales que no me esperaba.
Se nos abre la puerta a una Erica rota y vulnerable, que ha perdido tanto su brújula como su lugar seguro en unos pocos capítulos, y quiero saber cómo eso la va a afectar con la situación que tiene entre manos. Tengo muchísimas ganas de descubrir cómo va a lograr Erica deshacerse de las 2 amenazas que la persiguen y ver hasta qué punto de crudeza son capaces de llevarnos los creadores de esta obra.
I’m shocking myself that I’m only giving 4 stars to a Something is Killing the Children book… I still think this series is incredible! However, this volume was a little quieter, a bit more political and kind of a bridge to our next big thing (which is going to be epic I suspect!).
In volume five, we get more on the new kind of monster; one creepier in different ways from our alien bug looking monster we started with. Similar properties: only seen by kids (or specific adults trained), prefers children, and (specific to this kind) likes hot areas. I liked the use of the hot springs here as a lure, our new traumatized kid is interesting, and the Indigenous connection is, I hope, going to weave its way into some lore… but will have to see.
Overall the art incredible from Werther Dell’Edera, colours from Miquel Muerto continue the consistency of the look and feel we’ve come to know (and love) in this universe. I’m very excited for a big hunter versus hunter moment… and while I fear for Erika I gotta think she’s smart enough to find a clever way out of anything. I jumped over House of Slaughter Vol 2 to read this now as I’m feeling pulled in. But after this volume I’ll try to go back to publication order (even if it kills me to have another cliffhanger) so I’m experiencing the story in the intended order.
My comic collection features 200+ comics (and variants) so to say I love this series (or at least the cover art) would perhaps be an understatement. Erika Slaughter rocks! But of course I don’t read comics (lol), I read from trade paperback volumes that can be mildly damaged without worry that I’m destroying a valuable comic. It’s like an insurance policy… rather spend $20 to preserve the comics than read them and risk hundreds if I damage any one valuable issue. Onward to volume six I go as I gotta know what’s next!
I loved this volume, but it hurt me. 😭 Ugh, I just love this series so much. I know we've only just met Cutter, but I loathe every fiber of her existence already. She's absolutely awful and I'm sure this won't be the end of the destruction she will create. Part of me dreads Volume 6 because this new development in the storyline would be a really easy way for Tynion to wrap things up in the next volume, and I don't want it to be over!
✨ Representation: multiple Latinx characters, sapphic side character
The interlude, in which Erica's, and the Order of St. George's, backgrounds were revealed, is over and we're back to the main story. Erica is in New Mexico hunting down another vicious monster that is killing children, and sometimes adults, in a small town. Meanwhile, those in charge of her house of the Order want her dead since they feel she has gone off the reservation. To do the deed, they've contracted a black mask from another house in England. Now Cutter has arrived and is eager to carry out the assassination. This title continues to serve up some of the best horror and stylized artwork out there.
¡Me sigue encantando! Y es que no baja el ritmo. Los personajes nuevos están buenísimos, y qué decir de los monstruos y escenas sangrientas 🙌
En este vol. apareció una criatura que recuerda mucho a otra que se ha hecho bien conocida, pero le da un giro macabro acorde más a lo que aquí nos tienen acostumbrados.
I like where this is going! It's the perfect amount of blood and gore, the monsters are actually creepy, and that Cutter-lady is the kind of bad guy you really love to hate.
it’s been a year since the events at archer’s peak, and erica finds herself in tribulation facing a new monster. however, this monster isn’t the only plight of erica’s; unbeknownst to her, the order has sent an assassin to put an end to her rogue ways. this was a thrilling collection! i loved the new side character, gabi, and i’m excited to see where this storyline goes.
So I've been really liking this series so far. So much so that I even pre-ordering this volume. Unfortunately, this is easily the weakest volume in the series to date. Bar Erica and the odd familiar face from volume 4, we have a completely new set of characters, and frankly, I didn't connect to any of them, unlike the little boy from the first few volumes, who I was rooting for from the start and greatly sympathised with.
Honestly, I don't know why the creators thought it would be a great idea to make Gabi a rude, obnoxious little shit. Maybe they thought it would be cool to make her 'feisty', but all she ended up being was the only kid in the series' history that I've actually wanted to be disembowelled by the monsters. Fuck I hated Gabi. Despite her tragic circumstances, her behaviour towards the people that cared about her and wanted to help her was appalling, and her attitude in general stunk. There was literally no way in hell I was ever going to sympathise with a kid that smashes open the head of the cop that is openly trying to protect her purely just to spite him. Gabi actually made this volume unpleasant to read, and I even fucking pre-ordered this. Gabi is also the reason that I won't be picking up the next volume in any great hurry. I'll get to it eventually, once it's out, but it certainly won't be a priority read anymore. That's how much this kid turned me off.
Erica is cool though. She's always cool. And I like how adults only take a small amount of convincing to be on her side. Makes the story progression smoother and far less annoying. We like when people trust Erica.
The dodgy formatting that I always have to mention wasn't quite so bad this time, though it did still trip me up a couple of times, to which I literally have to read the pages both down and across and see which one makes more sense. Seriously, if you're going to format your panels across two pages, at least make it more obvious that it reads across instead of down. I will never not hate this format.
Cutter, the assassin sent after Erica is creepy but also a bit too theatrical for me to fully take her seriously. She's the villain, but she's just a bit too cheesy to be scary.
Also, got to say bad move in
On the whole? Not gonna lie, I'm like that Disappointed Hercules meme right now. I hope the series picks up again. I already miss how good this used to be. Although this one is a miss, all previous volumes have been total hits, so I'll definitely continue the series.
Feb 2023: Volume 5 is solid. A new arc, a possible Erica junior introduced (do I say too much?) a new town, the grim reality of the Octo stuffie, and, HORRIBLY, the new character CUTTER who is possibly more horrifying even than the new monster which (BY THE WAY) horrifying. So… not the unstoppable tour de force that volume four was, but a damn good volume itself.
June 2023: Reread to get myself back in the stream of things for Volume 6. I love Gary so much. I can totally picture Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing him.