Something Is Killing the Children is one of the biggest modern success stories in comics with massive sales in stores and a Netflix adaptation currently in development. The story centered upon Erica Slaughter, a rogue monster hunter from the Order of St. George, has proven too large for the pages of Something Is Killing the Children alone. Co-creators James Tynion IV and Werther Dell’Edera have released the companion series House of Slaughter, telling the stories of various supporting characters introduced in the main series. They’ve also developed a series of one-shots focusing on the development of Maxine Slaughter as the House of Slaughter’s new Black Mask, including extensive data pages in each installment. The trilogy, begun in Book of Slaughter and continued in Book of Butcher, concludes this week in Book of Cutter, which promises to be the most revealing installment yet.

House of Cutter #1 is written by James Tynion IV and Tate Brombal with art by Werther Dell’Edera, Chris Shehan and Letizia Cadonici, colors by Miquel Muerto, letters by AndWorld Design and a cover by Dan Mora. The issue focuses upon the final stage of Maxine Slaughter’s training to become a Black Mask. She travels to the House of Cutter in London, where she trains with Black Mask George Cutter and uncovers the history and politics of House Slaughter. The issue also contains extensive epistolary pages from histories and diaries related to the lore of Something Is Killing the Children.

Maxine Slaughter’s Globetrotting Comes to a Consequential Conclusion

House of Cutter Reveals Essential Lore and Secrets for Something Is Killing the Children

Book of Cutter cannot be recommended to readers not familiar with Something Is Killing the Children as its protagonist arrives fully formed from that series’ pages and the issue is loaded with data pages intended for invested readers. But for fans of Tynion and Dell’Edera’s headlining horror story from Boom Studios, Book of Cutter delivers the goods. Each of the “Book of…” one-shots has provided Maxine with an interesting mentor and intriguing journey, but her tutelage under George Cutter stands out as the most intense narrative of her arc.

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Cutter comes from a very different House than those readers have to know in North America. As a result, he brings a unique perspective to recent events and his disarmingly open English affectation hints at a lot of developing story lines. The ambitions and dangers posed by the House of Slaughter come into full view through Maxine’s journey and the accompanying data pages. That journey is loaded with darkness, of course, as George pushes Maxine toward embracing extreme acts of violence and independent action.

This serves to make a point about why the Black Masks of the Order are such an important and tempestuous quantity in Something Is Killing the Children. Maxine’s journey from White to Black Mask has followed a fundamental shift in the character as she comes to embrace a new perspective and methods. It has resulted in some very tense individual sequences that add up to one of the most intriguing antagonists, or possibly anti-heroes, from across the franchise. Her work as an assassin and spy in Book of Cutter is equally impressive and revealing.

An Epistolary Format Plays Upon the Strengths of Comics

Data and Diary Entries Make for Essential Reading that Expands Upon Comics Pages

Before the end of Book of Cutter, Maxine overhears some very big secrets foreshadowing coming conflicts in Something Is Killing the Children. It makes clear why this trilogy of stories is essential to the overall plot and the associated data pages are every bit as revealing. Book of Slaughter delved into the Order of St. George and Book of Butcher revealed more of its history, but Book of Cutter looks specifically at the foundation of the House of Slaughter and its history of expansion across North America. It’s the sort of lore that would be out of place in Erica’s story but clearly connects to the conflicts and themes of her story, as foreshadowed by the end of Maxine’s story in these pages.

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Many of the entries stem from a text titled “The House of Cutter: An Ancient History” and they spell out for readers in digestible prose from co-writer Tate Brombal. Given the volume of these pages, the direct style of writing is appropriate to both the text itself and the comics medium. Each new entry shines a clearer light on how the House of Slaughter came to be and juxtapose revelations about its present motives in a fashion that embeds the data pages as an essential component of the comic.

These entries conclude with an extended diary section from the hunter who would found two of the three great Houses in North America. It is a page-turner that takes cues from classic epistolary horror like Dracula and Frankenstein. Readers will find the same gut-wrenching twists and bleak outlooks that pervade Something Is Killing the Children in this issue’s unexpected climax buried centuries in the past. It’s clear throughout the final few sequences of this issue that the past is predicting both the problems and conflicts of the future and terrible events lie on the horizon of Something Is Killing the Children.

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Book of Cutter #1 is bound to excite readers of Something Is Killing the Children who will see the many implications for the story’s future as this one-shot uncovers its past. But it works just as well as the conclusion of Maxine Slaughter’s own story as she grows more and more like her hated predecessor, Erica Slaughter. Maxine’s growing understanding of the world she inhabits has provided an enlightening journey for her and fans alike, one that’s bound to pay off just as soon as she returns to Something Is Killing the Children.

Book of Cutter #1 is now available wherever comics are sold.