“I am a Ranger Scout… and I believe in the Seven Laws.
From nuclear fire to radioactive waste, I will not succumb to the Badlands… for I am d-descended from the Prophet…. and his w-words shall not be denied.”
“Commander— hazard detected!
“Hear my prayer. And let me fear not the wilderness of death… now and forevermore, I am a Ranger Scout,,,”
“Seek shelter immediately!!”

Kit has passed the Trials of the Eagle and accessed the hidden tech in the Eagle’s Nest to get the answers she seeks.  But those answers don’t bring peace to her.  In fact, they endanger her more than anything this post-apocalyptic world can throw at her.

In the Hero’s Journey, the hero is traditionally cast out into the wilderness to wander in search of knowledge, and in Scout’s Honor #4, writer David Pepose accomplishes this with manic gusto.  After learning the truth and finding out everything she’s built her life on is a flimsy facade, Kit escapes a sentence of death by fleeing into the Badlands… where even darker challenges await.

Kit isn’t just fighting against the elements, the Badlands ,and the mutations that stalk her.  She’s fighting against her own loss of faith, her own sense of betrayal of everything she’s fought for, everything he father died for.

In lesser hands, the battle that makes up the bulk of this chapter could have been just a knock-down, shoot-em-up fireworks show, but Pepose’s careful plotting and dialogue gives artist Casalanguida an excellent palette to apply his talented lines to.  His deft handling of the epic storm ravaging the wasteland carries a palpable sense of foreboding and peril through each of Matt Milla’s evocatively colored pages.  This is Kit’s Long Dark Night of the Soul and in the hands of these master storytellers, it looms large over her.

And the revelation she learns may be the thing that could save or doom everyone.  Because the most dangerous thing in a faithless world.. is a true believer.

I could read a hundred more issues of this story and still look forward to each new issue, and I’m already dreading the final issue next month.  Do yourself a favor and pick up one of the best new series of the year.

“Come on, you mutant bastard.  Don’t let a little acid rain scare you…
J-just do me a favor and kill me…
… please… I’ve got nothing left…”

VERDICT: FIVE out of FIVE stars

Creative Team:  David Pepose (writer), (artist), Luca Casalanguida, Matt Milla (colorist), Carlos M. Mangual (letterer)
Publisher:    Aftershock Comics
Click here to purchase.