My Week in Comics: The Sixth Gun #35

I've harped about Cullen Bunn's storytelling chops so many times, but it bears repeating: the dude's good. Case in point: The Sixth Gun #35.

This issue marks the explosive finale to the Ghost Dance storyarc that saw Becky Montcrief journey through the spirit world, exploring different realities that could happen should the Six Guns be reunited. Here, Becky stumbles upon a world where she ends up with a husband, kids, and her father alive and well! But things aren't always what they seem, and as Becky's allies and Missy Hume's demonic army battle for Becky's soul in the waking world, one thing is for certain: no one comes out of this the same person again!

I gotta say, the whole Ghost Dance arc is some of Cullen Bunn's best work. Characters changed and grew in the course of the last five issues, and this finale gives us some very satisfying payoffs that you won't see coming. Becky, in particular, has come so far from the simple farmer's daughter in issue one. If you thought she has become hardened by her experiences before, she walks out of the Ghost Dance harder...and angrier. And it will affect her relationships with some of the characters in this book, in particular her protector Drake Sinclair and the scoundrel Kirby Hale.

Even the bad guys don't leave intact. Just when you thought Missy Hume (General Hume's sadistic widow and hunter of the Six Guns) gets to lick her wounds another day, a bigger evil rears its ugly head and what happens in the last few pages is nothing else but shocking. It's been a while since I've read a comic book that made me desperately want to know what happens next!

A finale this amazing deserves to be rendered accordingly, and Brian Hurtt and Bill Crabtree step up to deliver some of their best work. They don't miss a beat, serving up visuals that are appropriately visceral and action-packed. And at thirty-five issues in, I'm still very grateful that we have the same writer and artists working on the book. Pat your backs, everybody.!

It's safe to say that the entire Ghost Dance storyarc is a return to form for Bunn and co., and The Sixth Gun #35 is proof of that. This issue is the rare breed of comic book that delivers on its promises and makes a lot of more of them to get you coming back.This gets a 5 out of 5. You've got to read this book, people. You've just gotta!