By Zack Quaintance — It’s been a long week for me (filled with day job work travel...sort of), so I’m going to start this review of Going to the Chapel #4 with a summary of this series that I wrote for this week’s Top Comics to Buy feature: Simply put, this book is hilarious, combining a gangster heist story with the already-loaded relationship drama inherent to a wedding, mixing together zany family members, past relationships, and plenty of other volatile elements.

That’s a pretty good description of Going to the Chapel, if I do say so myself, and it’s especially apt here in this final issue, where it’s all on display. It’s kind of hard to write about this fourth issue without going into spoiler territory, but I will say that I liked how well the pacing of this miniseries built the tension, and I especially liked how writer David Pepose and artist Gavin Guidry resolved things here in a sensical and emotionally satisfying way. 

A lot of Going to the Chapel was over the top by design, and it worked really great. Basically, it felt like the creative team here wanted to tell an interesting story about romantic commitment, specifically about getting cold feet and looking back on one’s past loves right before a wedding. This kind of story doesn’t quite work within direct market comics in 2020 — it’s too thoughtful, too understated. So, the creators here dressed their ideas up with a heist, with a crime comic where everything was set at 11. The bride’s ex didn’t just come back into her life, he came back into her life with a shotgun-weilding gang that held the whole wedding up. 

See what I mean? This book is a blast, and I can’t think of a better way to sort of Trojan Horse a sweet story about lifelong romantic commitment to direct market comics readers. The last thing I’ll note is that there’s been a three-month delay between the last issue and this one, and it kind of worked out in the book’s favor a little bit. Past the six weeks mark, I’m not sure it really matters that much if a book is delayed two months or three...but this one managing to come out just a week before Valentine’s Day is decent timing, to be sure. 

Overall: Underneath the madcap heist story exterior, Going to the Chapel #4 finally reveals the sweet beating heart of plot about committed romantic love that had been powering this thing all along. 8.8/10

Going to the Chapel #4
Writer: David Pepose
Artist: Gavin Guidry
Colorist: Liz Kramer
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Publisher: Action Lab
Price: $3.99
Solicit: It's time to bride or die! With the police about to storm the chapel, Emily must choose her allegiances and her own uncertain future. Can Emily face her fears of lifelong commitment, or will her anxieties be dashed by a runaway bullet? Find out here in this thrilling finale!

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.