The last time we saw this cast of characters, they were in less than holy pastures.
Marty and his new employee Alison had been kidnapped by a Satanic cult called the Church of the Immortal Heartbeat. Little did they know they would be getting recruited by Veronika, the Head-Satanist-in-Charge, to kill cult founder Doctor Shiver. Grab your fries, pentagrams, and possibly your Bibles, because here comes the third installment of Trve Kvlt!
The Plot
We begin this issue with Marty slipping into a day dream while he’s being interrogated by Veronika. In the vision, a happy Marty is in front of Burger Lord, asking customers if they want to hear the good news, all religious fanatic style. It doesn’t really add anything to the context, but luckily, Veronika snaps him out of it. Back in reality, Veronika explains to Marty and Alison how she plans to use them to help kill the Church’s founder, Doctor Shiver (yes that’s really his name). After receiving their instructions, Marty and Alison are taken to the Church’s headquarters where Doctor Shiver lives. This place looks like a day spa in the middle of nowhere but, according to Veronika, it has 66 floors under the main floor. Marty and Alison’s job is to descend down to the 66th floor where Doctor Shiver lives so they can kill him with a vinyl record (yes, one of those discs they used to play music on in the ’50s). But first they must deal with the acolytes, a.k.a. Church employees, who are tasked with initiating new recruits.
Both Marty and Alison are assigned an acolyte, but we only get to see Marty’s acolyte Nancy. This woman spends the entire meeting trying to sell the “good news of the Church” to Marty. In doing so, she hooks him up to a machine where he gets to see around 700 different outcomes of how his life could have ended. According to Nancy, however, there is only one correct outcome: he joins the church and becomes one of them. This sequence is the same vision we saw in Marty’s daydream earlier, except it has more context. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see where this vision leads because it ends abruptly due to Alison sneaking in and disconnecting the machine. Oh and she also knocked Nancy out with her bare hands. You know, just for good measure.
After descending 65 flights of stairs, the two reach the 66th floor and confront Doctor Shiver. Upon seeing him, Marty freaks out and throws the record weapon at him. It does nothing of course since Veronika never explained how to use it. Doctor Shiver, however, recognizes it immediately and explains that it contains a demon friend of his. We never see what the hell he’s even talking about, though, because this is where the issue ends. Yeah, shit’s getting real weird.
Plot Dynamics
One thing I’ve noticed about Trve Kvlt is that Veronika’s characterization is a bit zany and unfocused. Veronika has a lot going for her as this edgy devil-worshipping chick who has the gall to kill her own boss; but frankly, the plot would work out better if her intelligence was displayed more. It would make more sense if Veronika actually knew how to use the record weapon instead of just giving it to Marty and saying, “Here, kill my boss with this.” What was her reasoning for wanting to kill Doctor Shiver in the first place? And why hadn’t she figured out how to use the weapon yet? Was she truly expecting Marty to do it? There’s a lot of unanswered questions such as these that needs to be addressed.
As for Marty and Alison, that’s a whole other situation in itself. Alison says that when she was with her acolyte, she saw a wide variety of different outcomes from being a roller coaster operator to being a professional poker player. But as for Marty, all his life versions displayed the same image: him alone in his room holding a gun. Now we don’t know the context of any of these images; it could possibly be Marty contemplating suicide or contemplating the petty heist he had just committed a mere 36 hours before. Either way, only one conclusion remains: no matter what Marty chose to do with his life, it would all lead to him holding a gun in his room.
Climax
The ending was very abrupt and didn’t make much sense. I get that it was a cliff hanger but, from a writer’s perspective, adding that whole running gag of cooking burgers to perfection is unnecessary. The dialogue just should’ve stopped at Doctor Shiver telling Marty and Alison to see what happens. It would’ve made him a lot more menacing.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I have mixed feelings about this issue. Veronika was more spastic than actually villainous, the climax was abrupt, and I actually found the Satanic headquarters kind of appealing in that day spa type of way (granted I can’t handle horror or any type of human sacrifices so I’m actually quite glad that the the Satanic Cult isn’t that violent). One redeeming quality is that Marty seems to be going through an extremely relatable mid-life crisis. Imagine discovering that every single outcome of your life is the same miserable image? I don’t know about you but that would certainly drive me into questioning my own spirituality.
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