While writing my reviews for the first three volumes of Rat Queens I started to find out a bunch of behind the scenes stuff about the series. Like how the first artist was fired after his arrest for domestic violence, and the second artist left for health reasons. And this is the final issue for the third artist, who left under a cloud of controversy, with her saying she was being pushed out to bring back the first artist despite promises that would never happen, and the writer saying it was for creative differences. So that brought the series to a screeching halt, and during the hiatus it was decided to abandon the storyline that began here. Eventually Rat Queens relaunched with a fourth artist and a new #1 issue.

Sort of sounds like garage band drama.

Since it was decided to exclude this issue from the trade paperbacks and because I'm a completist, I bought a digital copy before reading the fourth book currently on hold for me at the library. It's not much of a story, as most of the main characters return to Palisade shaken from the events of the last volume and ready to party away their bad mood. There are some happy and unhappy reunions with the supporting cast, but nothing much happens until a shocking cliffhanger . . . that is to be forever left hanging (though there is apparently an Easter Egg reference to it in one of the volumes in my future). Overall, this issue is on par with the rest of the series.

Onto the next volume. ( )