Nailbiter, Vol. 6: The Bloody Truth

Nailbiter #6

by Joshua Williamson (Writer), Mike Henderson (Illustrator), Adam Guzowski (Colorist)

Sixteen of the world’s worst serial killers were all born and raised in the same small town.

For years, people have tried to solve the mystery of “Why this town?” And now the truth is finally revealed...but at what cost?

The bloody tale of horror from creators JOSHUA WILLIAMSON and MIKE HENDERSON concludes!

Collects: Nailbiter #26-#30.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels Comics, Crime, Mystery, Fiction

131 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 3, 2017

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 3 out of 5]

(B) 73% | More than Satisfactory
Notes: Blathers a lot, just only shock for plot, so deathly disjointed, you leave it disappointed, and irked 'twas all for naught.

*Progress update

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually really loving the ending.
I know, right? Because this last volume doesn't exactly have the highest rating or best reviews.
And that actually shocked me when I finished reading and started looking around at what my friends thought about The Bloody Truth.



You guys didn't like this?! Whaaaaat?!
It was far better than I was expecting.
And yeah, Alice does give a huge info dump speech at the end to explain the hows and whys.
But I has some serious reservations about this supposed big secret that would change the world if anyone were to find out about it.
Yeah. Right.
When I hear that my Spidey sense starts tingling because authors have a tendency to disappoint me with one bullshit idea or another that most certainly would NOT change the world in any realistic way.
But. I have to admit that this secret thing would change everything.

If you had a way to accurately test people for the genetic markers that would someday make them a serial killer? Yes. That would be used and abused.
You are looking at a Minority Report kind of worldview that would ruin as-of-yet innocent lives and definitely be manipulated by higher-ups in all kinds of nefarious ways.



And I thought it was brilliant that Warren didn't have the gene. He was just an asshole who assumed this was his fate and wanted an excuse to be a psycho.



I liked that he wasn't a black or white character, too. In his own way, he kind of wanted to be a hero, and there for a skinny minute, you think his dying act was to take himself out with the evil doctor. <--and that kind of made the real ending even better!







The last pages!
For me, they were a sort of perfection because it had this classic horror movie ending. It was exactly what I wanted from this and it left me with a massive smile on my face when I closed the book.

I loved that you get Crane and Alice all smiley and snug together with that sense of Happily Ever After.



And then.
A shower scene with a horror comic heroine. <--does it get better?



YES. Because when Warren pulls the curtain back with his knife?



You see that she was ready for him!
Clothes on, gun drawn! Shoot his crazy ass, sister!





Loved it.



But of course, this is a horror comic, so you know this bitch isn't dead...



Fade to black.


For me? This was maybe the best ending to a horror comic ever.
But looking at quite a few other reviewers, I'm going to say your mileage may vary with this one.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a letdown after some great moments in previous volumes. The whole thing felt very rushed. Maybe because Williamson signed an exclusive contract with DC? We do get all our answers which are great. But the ending was the stereotypical let the villain monologue everything to us while we wait for our moment, instead of just killing us. And then the stereotypical second death nonsense in the last few pages. A disappointing finish to what had previously been a fantastic string of books.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

That ending blew.

[CS · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

1-star is more for the entire waste of time series.

Buckaroo had 16 serial killers. What made this happen? It's surprisingly mediocre and not nearly worthy of dragging it out for 6 volumes. The Big Baddie feels pulled from a hat and when he is FINALLY revealed, it's lackluster.

I'm mostly glad I'm done with this series and it's constant teasing of answers with more questions. Good riddance!

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pains me to rate this one so slow. It's more around a 2.5 but it's a little bit of a mess. With Nail biter 1-5 we got a few bumps along the way but overall it was well paced and interesting. This one felt very very rushed. I don't know if it's because got canned ot because Joshua just wanted it to end but it felt extremely rushed.

What I liked: The art is still top notched. Love the way it all flows. The backstory of Warren was also interesting and liked that quite a bit. The end result was explained decently...kind of?

What I didn't like: The ending was little crappy. I saw it coming and then the reveal wasn't all that great, and the final few pages felt very tagged on. Also the exposition is crazy high in this volume and rushed so much it ruined the flow completely.

Nailbiter is a good series and I really do recommend it. Volume 1-3 and 5 are all amazing. 4 and 6 are the low points but still find some enjoyable moments. I'll still check out anything Joshua puts out but can't say I was satisfied with the ending to this one.

[Chelsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ending for this was so bad, I laughed. I don't think the writers knew how they wanted this to play out fully. This series could have been something great if it was more thought out.

[Marianna Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5 stars

First of all, I had no idea this was the final chapter of Nailbiter before I picked this up, and I am definitely not ready to say goodbye to these characters. As far as endings go, this one was somewhat satisfying. While I'm glad this volume provided all of the answers, I wish it focused more on Warren himself (though it did get there towards the end). The reveals could have been executed (no pun intended) better than a giant info dump, but hey, they had A LOT to explain since they pretty much kept everything a mystery this entire series. The last few pages made me laugh - they may be a bit too ridiculous for some but somehow this worked for me. I'll miss you, Warren!

This murder gene thing though... I don't know how to feel about it. I like that they turned it into a point about making a choice, but I think they could have made that point without the gene shenanigans.

[Sooraya Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a feeling that this story wasn't thought through properly.
Stretched over 30 issues, the ending wasn't at all satisfying.
"It's not about what makes a serial killer. It's about why..." What does this even mean?

[Jonathan Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series was quite a ride, and honestly I am somewhat relieved to have it end. It was intense to say the least. But regardless, great series. 5 Stars, would give more if I could.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final war with the master is here! He has plans to bomb the entire town by putting explosives in the flatline and we have him experimenting on Finch and then taking out both Warren and his daughter, also Abigail comes in and kinda stabs Shannon and then we have all of them brought to the place where the gauntlet happens and its disturbing and creepy but the real thing is when we find out the identity of the Master and the whole revelations from Alice as to what this test - "Murder gene" test is and the gauntlet that turns people the way - this way and Warren being an anomaly and its a final confrontation between them and what will happen next? Also good ending for Heather and the fallout and the after-life of Finch and Shannon and her daughter and so much more! Plus that ending just wow! This was a good volume and clarifies everything and answers a lot of mysteries and the answer is intriguing and the art throughout the series was fun and it was good to see the story come full circle!

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was sure an underwhelming, unsatisfying conclusion. We finally get the answers we were waiting for and they're really kind of, dumb? The whole finish seems rushed and not particularly well planned out, which is too bad, because the book had been getting better for awhile now. But it started out dumb, so I guess it finished the same way, everything came back around again. Oh well. I sure hope Williamson's Birthright doesn't pan out like this.

[RG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ahhh damn disappointed with the conclusion. Just info dumps from certain characters going the way you'd expect. Felt a little too clean and rushed in a way.

[ELION1738 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

Nailbiter volumes 1-6:

Pros: easy read, unique lore, gore, classic horror callbacks, northwestern setting.

Cons: consistently mediocre dialogue, often rushes big moments while dragging out thin “mystery” plot elements, and near the end it seemed that the writers were scrambling for answers.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://youtu.be/YteA6nbwkY0

[Eduardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a lot of complaints (bad reviews) here, but I actually liked the ending a lot, especially the last issue. I found the whole thing very appropriate to the overall story, I'm glad they ended this at issue 30 and didn't decide to drag the story endlessly as it often happens in comics. Very good horror series!

[Faby Farao · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tremendo,tutto ciò che accade in quest'ultimo volume è schiavo senza logica della risoluzione narrativa.
Fin dai primi volume ho sempre percepito un che di straniante e non compiuto,ma difronte al mistero ho chiaramente ignorato i segnali, sinceramente me ne pento.
Penso di aver perso tempo per altre letture più interessanti

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

After the way this story has been stretched, pulled, and unnecessarily dragged out over the past five volumes, I was fully prepared to be disappointed by a lackluster reveal of the great truth behind the Buckaroo Butchers. What I was NOT prepared for was what an utter shark-jumping, fridge-nuking, messy train wreck of an ending this was. For this story to have fallen so far from the promising heights of its beginnings is incredibly unsatisfying, but so much of this is sloppy nonsense that doesn't make sense.

Again Williamson stretches the bounds of reality, now more than ever, for the sake of a few cheap scares. In a flashback early on in the volume, the Butcher of Buckaroo is sneaking up on a character and literally disappears into thin air when said character turns around in the direction he was being pursued from. "Oh, I see," says I, "he quickly darted behind that large tree right there." But sadly, no, the Butcher's arms somehow immediately burst out of the cemetery dirt, grabbing Carroll to pull him into the underground tunnels below. Is he a wizard now that he cast Dimension Door to teleport underground? Or perhaps Soften Earth and Stone? Was this a dream sequence? No, unfortunately there is no indication that this is anything other than a flashback of actual events that, somehow, against all sense and reason, happened.

After a few more lackluster reveals, "the master" boasts about how all his unfortunate captives will have to run through "the gauntlet", a series of horrors that is designed to drive people insane to the point that it turns them into killers. And he has a brand new Butcher to help "motivate" his poor victims through. Only the traumatized Agent Barker does the most predictable thing ever, and instead of obeying the lunatic who captured and tortured her and ruined her life, she takes the twin machetes that he foolishly just armed her with and ATTACKS HIM WITH THEM. How did he not see this coming? Was anyone at all surprised when she turned the blades on him? How could she possibly have been expected to do anything else? And then when she leads the characters through this so-called gauntlet we've been hearing so much about? It turns out to be nothing more than an empty stretch of underground tunnel. I WISH I WAS JOKING. Where were all the horrors that created so many killers? Well, apparently they were on break because they are nowhere in evidence here. And there's no room for an argument that Barker led them safely past all that stuff, because you can literally see the room they came from at the end of the straight hallway behind them, and they are running to a light at the end of the straight tunnel. This isn't exactly an advanced-level maze they are navigating here. And oddly, Barker says that the "last thing she's going to do on this earth is save lives". But she doesn't do anything except stop running and get crushed by falling rocks? How exactly is that saving lives? "Go on, I'll hold off the falling rocks so they don't chase you"? It makes no sense at all.

But absolute worst of all is the cheap, lazy ending that really feels like it was tacked on as a last minute addition because they could think of no other way to end it. A year after the events of the climax Shannon Crane and her daughter Alice are living together in Portland. Alice leaves the house and Shannon gets into the shower (is she a never-nude? Because she is showering in her underwear for some reason). A shadowy visitor sneaks into the house, juxtaposed against scenes of her in the shower. The intruder pulls back the shower curtain and we see that it is Edward Charles Warren, the Nailbiter himself! Nevermind the fact that we last saw him and the Master fall into a chasm that looks about as deep as the one Gandalf fell into when he was fighting the Balrog--somehow he survived the tremendous fall into the blazing inferno. Also nevermind that he previously only ever showed affection and concern for Shannon, having broken off his relationship with her in high school because he was afraid he would hurt her.

Like Sledge Hammer or any cop worth their salt, Shannon Crane evidently showers with her gun and unloads a clip into Nailbiter, dropping him to the floor, dead. She walks out of the bathroom, and then like some Michael Myers shit he gets up and lunges at her screaming, full of bullet holes and having lost tremendous amounts of blood. AND SCENE. The story is over. Absolute rubbish. The thing is, if the story had come out the gate with crazy supernatural stuff happening in it, I'd be able to swallow the events of this volume a lot more easily. But the first volume of Nailbiter established such a firm tone of being grounded it reality that these wild occurances later in the story come out of left field and seem silly.

In the beginning I thought Nailbiter would make for a great TV series with its deliciously compelling conceit, but if such a series would follow anything resembling the path that the comics did, I have absolutely no interest in seeing such a series. I have enjoyed some of Williamson's other work so it pains me to be so harsh on Nailbiter, but as far as conclusions go, this was seriously weak.

[Valéria. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last volume was rushed, but I still liked it, even the ending. I don't understand what people are complaining about, it's good it ended with this volume, anything more would be just unnecessary, boring filling. Anyway, great horror series and I'm glad I gave it a second chance.

[Averi Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow just wow, this series is a trip. I can't wait to finish the last 2 to give my full review.

[Kadi P · Rating 3 out of 5]

*More like 3.5 stars than 3*

Not exactly the conclusion to the series that I was expecting to get but it was still sort of satisfactory. It gets points for actually making sense, yet I must admit it felt a little underwhelming and rushed.

It was nice to see all the moving pieces come together as the truth was revealed at last. I liked that the truth only reinforced how crazy and fantastic Warren was as a character. He was a bad guy that mostly felt good (despite his nailbiting ways) who you couldn’t help but root for.

The almost happily ever after ending felt a little like a cop out so I’m glad to have seen that confusing reappearance at the end. I had no idea what it meant so it’s a good thing the series continues with Nailbiter, Vol. 7: Nailbiter Returns although I do wonder what’s left to explore now the whole mystery has been revealed...

[Alex | | findingmontauk1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The thing is... I think people want the bad guys to get away with it. Because deep in their hearts, the hope that if they ever did anything wrong, they'd be allowed to get away with it."

And now we finally know the truth behind that town that created/birthed 16 serial killers! I absolutely love how they handled this and the ending was just superb. I highly recommend this to ANY AND EVERY graphic novel lover, horror love, and serial killer lover! Read this series! 5 stars for the entire thing even if each installment to this point is not all 5s.

[Yamin Eaindray · Rating 2 out of 5]

The revealing of the truth we have been waiting so long for was disappointing. Utterly disappointing, after this great action that was the first five volumes. The ending left me hanging and I didn't know if I wanted more. I love Warren and Crane's chemistry but the ending was more confusing than anything. This could have ended as well as it started.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ok ending to an ok story. I liked that they went for a really BIG ending, but boy does it feel like they had to cram a lot into the ending here. I wonder if this title was cut short for some reason? If you're interested in this title, it's worth picking up, but it's not going to blow your socks off.

[Zardoz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bad ending to a lackluster series.

[Zedsdead · Rating 2 out of 5]

At long last all is revealed, and I found it...not terrible but certainly lacking. The identity of The Master feels like it was pulled out of a hat. Some serious problems with ret-conning and a lack of consequences crystallize as the story wraps up. An ultimately disappointing ending.

Plot points:
--Warren is shot by a vigilante and hospitalized.
--Finch is tortured by The Master.
--Agent Barker stabs Sheriff Crane and puts her in the hospital. Alice shoots Barker in the knee.
--The Master blows up the entire town and in the chaos kidnaps Warren, Crane, and Alice.
--In the hidden murder tunnels, The Master convenes Finch, Barker, Warren, Alice, and Crane for monologuing and reveals. (And despite being respectively tortured, shot, shot, impaled, and stabbed, all five of them are in perfect shape. This has been a series-long problem, a story about extreme violence in which violence has virtually no consequences.)
--We learn in a Scooby Doo reveal that The Master is Morty.
--The cause of the Buckaroo curse? Medical experiments designed to illuminate what creates murderers. Morty and Doctor Glory isolated a murder gene and created a test for it.
--Morty used bribes and influence to free Warren and the Blonde for more tests.
--Morty tells Barker she's his new horned killer but she just chops his arm off.
--Alice tests negative for the serial killer gene. Crane tests negative. Barker tests positive. Finch refuses the test. And in what is intended to be a massive twist, Warren tests negative. It means his redemptive story arc, in which he was a victim of The Master and not responsible for his crimes, was for nought. He killed because he wanted to.
--Warren holds Morty and allows the others to escape while the caves collapse like a supervillain's lair in a movie climax.

EPILOGUE
--Finch goes back to...heroically torturing suspects? Really?
--Crane and Alice move to Portland.
--Warren, who miraculously survived, tries to murder Crane in the shower. She shoots him nine times. He jumps up like a movie slasher. "The End?"

[Tanja L · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what to say about this one, I liked that finally everything was revealed, but I didn't really find the reveal that amazing. It was hyped up that it would change the whole world. Well, similar thing about the research in serial killer was already revealed in the real world and its impact wasn't that great so it felt a little underwhelming. Also, I don't get the change of attitude towards Warren after the reveal. He was a murderer from the beginning, what difference does it make what made him kill, does it make him more sympathetic if he can help it or not? No! Also I don't agree that he has total control of his urges. Also, the ending was cartoonish and, I thought, out of character for Warren so I didn't like it and found it disappointing. I feel like they just wanted to end it with a classic slasher movie cliché and it didn't really work for me.
Overall, the whole comic as a series was really good with an interesting story, characters, relationships and lots of gore, so I would recommend it.

[Bene Vogt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not that there was any realistic chance of the reveal that the series had been teasing for most of it’s run being entirely satisfying, but the three pages of exposition monologue this actually offers is actually almost hilariously inadequate, as is the thoroughly predictable series of events that follows.

Though the very last reveal is so ridiculous and dumb it was a nice reminder of what there is to like about the series, the kind of ridiculous idiocy usually only found in bad Slasher movies.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG we went with a rational explanation for all the spooky goings-on? Well that’s just fantastic - thank you!

I’m so tired of mysteries that pull a deus ex by “explaining” all the crazy shit with some unearned crazier shit. So unsatisfying. That all of the shenanigans in this series fit together as a bunch of low-level illuminati-lite experiments and Mengele-type experiments is far more satisfying to me than if they’d pulled some unpronounceable lizard-tentacle gods.

And I’m sorry, if you’re butthurt about the epilogue and post-epilogue stinger, you just have no appreciation for the source material the creators are paying homage to. I would’ve been double-disappointed if they didn’t go there.

Thanks guys for a great, consistently interesting run. And for giving Warren the agency he deserved.

Buddyread with Anne of South Carolina

[Pablo Bueno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunque me ha gustado más el viaje que la llegada al destino, la verdad es que es una historia muy chula y que engancha. Otra recomendación leída de mis compañeros de Tryperión, ¡os odio! (Pero con cariño)