In Review: American Gods: Shadows #4

Synopsis: During an overnight stay at their home, Shadow awakens to a visit from the third of the Zorya sisters: Zorya Polunochnaya. The Midnight Sister’s advice is ethereal and strange, yet vital . . . and Shadow can’t seem to separate reality from the dream world.

Review: The fourth issue of American Gods is pretty full in terms of the amount of story it gets through. It would have been at least two episodes of the television series.

The first half of the issue deals with the Checkers game between Shadow and Czernobog.

I loved how P. Craig Russell and his art team described the two checkers game. It seemed to work more dramatically than how the game played out in the television show.

We also get a little more detail of Shadow’s conversation with Zorya the younger of the three sisters.  The wordplay between Shadow and Zorya in this chapter of the series is well done. I particularly enjoyed the artists drawing of Zorya seemingly taken hold of the moon and the symbolism of the coin in the slight of hand trick that comes out of that moment.

The last part of the issue focuses on the story of Essie TheGowan.

In this version of events. Essie is from Cornwall and not Irish like she was in the television show. The story of Essie is narrated in much the same way as it in in the television show.

The events in Essie’s life play out much the same as they do in the television show, but we get a little more detail about the fate of her children and so forth.

Overall this was a great issue that got through a huge chunk of the story and was somehow able to give a few more details to the reader than you’d have gotten from the TV series.

I now look forward to issue five, which will likely feature Shadow and Mr. Wednesday’s bank robbery and will be followed up with their meeting with the new gods.