Welcome to Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #6

“Homecoming-Part 6: Ending Note” (No Spoilers)

Writer: Gail Simone
Pencils: Horacio Domingues
Colors: Carrie Strachan
Letters: Travis Lanham
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Cover: Neil Googe

We’re finally at the end of this surprisingly dark and disturbing Welcome to Tranquility story. Gail Simone truly reached into some dark places to come up with the villain of this series.

I think ultimately Simone was having a lot of fun with this series despite how dark it got. This issue sees some ideas from the original series come into play and it also takes an opportunity to add some surprising twists to the Tranquility lore. There are some characters that hook-up in here that were real shockers. The hook-up was introduced (and I guess technically simultaneously re-introduced) all in this one issue. But the denizens of this town are not exactly normal so it fits with feel of the town.

I’ve been reading this without going back and re-reading the original mini-series. I found that overall I was still able to enjoy it but even having read the original series, there were still some things that I found myself a little lost about. There is a mission that Sheriff Lindo sends Salabal on and at first I had no idea where it came from. When I saw the plan carried out I was able to piece together what happened but that’s only because I knew details about the character of Maximum Man from the original series. I think it’s something that new readers might get a little lost with. In the end, I think it’s better to read the original series first before reading this one. It’ll just make for a more complete reading experience.

This inadvertently became the swan song for the citizens of Tranquility. Their fate has already been revealed in the pages of World’s End so this was a nice little story that fits right before that. I really enjoyed this series and would’ve loved to have seen more done with these characters. Whatever is done in the future with the Wildstorm characters, I hope Simone is always at the forefront when it comes to the town of Tranquility.