Soul Survivor
This is certainly not a 'bad' cover, but it doesn't stand up well next to the other Rafael Albuquerque covers on this series. It's a little too simplistic. But the real problem is that it just doesn't represent this issue at ALL. Mitch is certainly investigating The Lab, but he's exploring the hideout of The Transhuman for clues to LOCATE The Lab. The Lab isn't involved directly AT ALL. If anything we should've had the cover from #8, with the curtain of death crawling out from behind, because this issue bring Suriel and the shadowy figure from hell back into the mix.
Mitch has Shadow Powers in this issue. For me, that's just awesome. Jesus Saiz (Andres Guinaldo's credited on the cover, but not in the interiors; he doesn't do any art this issue.) depicts the sweeping shadows pretty damn well. Probably some of the best anyone with a more ground art style could do. Someone more stylized like Dustin Nguyen would be PERFECT for sweeping shadows, but this issue shows that Saiz has the perfect versatility this series needs. Well, ok, he doesn't depict Hell's representative NEARLY as amazing as Fernando Dagnino did before, but that scene was some of my favorite comic art of all time, that's pretty damn hard to compete with. The gray way he represents him works really well as a substitution.
This issue is hard for me to properly appreciate, I think. Mitch has badass shadow powers, Abnett and Lanning are REALLY bringing things back together much more smoothly, Heaven and Hell reappear and demand Mitch's soul; 'Lucifer' (He's not stated to be that, but it's heavily hinted so I'm just going to call him Lucifer instead of 'Hell's Representative.') Lucifer acts in a fantastic, almost lawyer-like manner. Arranging deals and keeping his calm in the face of this disagreement.
But I'm not too fond of Kim Rebecki. I liked her in the old Resurrection Man series, but here she just seems too much like a plot device. Her vague psychometric powers are basically an excuse for her to just 'happen' to discover major plot points to move the story along, and frankly it just feels convenient and lazy.
On top of that, this issue reminds us just how insane the amount of plot points this series has is. This series is cancelled after only 3 more issues, RIDICULOUSLY bummed about that. Of all 10 cancelled series thus far, this was without a doubt my favorite. It began easily in my top 10 of all New 52, and even held onto a slot around the top 15 (Again, out of 52.) But I digress, the concern comes more on how it's going to wrap up a satisfying conclusion in only 3 more issues. We have The Lab, the crazy 'thing' that helped save Mitch's life and might have given him the non-Resurrection related powers, Hooker and the Body Doubles, the Transhuman, Suriel and Luficer and Mitch needing to give up his soul and how's he going to get out of that!? It's an impressively interesting amount of stuff that I REALLY want to see play out in the proper amount of issue, but it's going to need to be shoved into 3 to satisfy the need for answers, but it'll be hard to make it fully satisfying when it's forced into such a small space.
In Conclusion: 4/5
Kim Rebacki's 'Plot Point Finding' powers are starting to annoy me very quickly, but most of my major problems with this issue stem more from fear of the future of this series. This issue had shadow powers being awesome, plot points tied together in a good way for now, and the armies of Heaven and Hell in a courtroom standoff for one man's soul; a man who makes a desperate decision to stave off Armageddon.