In this review of Event Horizon: Dark Descent #4, the captain is put through his own personal Hell and is soon pushed to send out a message.
Event Horizon: Dark Descent #4
Writer: Christian Ward
Artist: Tristan Jones
Main Cover: Jeffrey Alan Love
Variant Cover: Aaron Campbell
Pages: 32 pages
Release Date: December 24, 2025
This review contains spoilers
It starts with a flashback to John learning to play the piano. He hits a wrong note, his father hits him and makes him try again. In the present, Paimon is taunting him over the deaths of his crew. Not to worry, though, as he sees fit to bring them back to him! In horrific zombie-like form.
Piano flashback again, this time with a bit more added to it. John’s forced by his dad to go on fox hunts, and he’s not entirely enthused about the whole thing as the dogs tear into their prey. He’s much more at home in the library, amongst the books.
But there’s a second bright spot in his flashbacks: another boy around his age named Jeremy. They kiss in the flashback…and are still doing so with Jeremy’s own horror-form. And that is when we learn that John’s dad wasn’t just abusive, but he was homophobic to boot.
Piano flashback, with John’s dad making him break up with Jeremy.
Paimon seems to be enjoying himself, making John relive every horrible thing in his life. He starts to invade the flashbacks after a while, keeps slinging guilt at John over the deaths of his crew, and John begs for it to stop.
Eventually, John realizes he needs to leave a message…or more of a warning. His crew can’t come home, and nobody should follow them. And the last we see of John, he’s slumped in the chair, an eye in each hand.
With Paimon ready to continue his torment for as long as he sees fit.
So, the story in Event Horizon: Dark Descent #4 as a whole is not something anyone would really want to experience, what with dealing with a ship of demons and crewmates dying left and right, but John’s situation in particular is especially harrowing.
When he’s first introduced, it’s mentioned that there were issues between himself and his father, and we get to see those more in-depth in this issue. It would have been easy for Paimon, upon entering the cockpit, to just kill the captain and be done with it. But that would have been too easy and a lot less fun for the demon.
So the most fitting means of torture he can find? Using the man’s past to get to him.
The use of repetition in both the reveal of his history and in Paimon’s torture of him works to the issue’s full advantage. Whenever it comes back to him at the piano, playing a few notes, hitting a wrong one, and being punished for it, there’s always something a bit different about it. Sometimes, we get an even better look at his father and the kind of person he was. At one point, we get to see John at a happier point in life.
As Paimon’s presence grows more and more noticeable in the flashbacks, we see such visuals as him appearing in the illustration in one of the library books, or Jeremy’s hands being covered in blood and his eyes missing, or the entire panel being tinted by blood and viscera.
There are a few close-ups on John’s eyes in the past, which in retrospect, feel like a bit of foreshadowing over his final(ish) state in this issue.
The artwork continues to be disturbing and well-drawn with Event Horizon: Dark Descent #4. One of the best moments for that is during the tainted flashback where John comes to the realization that he should send the message. It’s the same grassy field he was in with Jeremy, the sun shining down on him, Jeremy by his side…missing his eyes and covered in blood. That contrast between the calm and idyllic and the sick and twisted is always so interesting to see.
Final Thoughts
Those parental issues take center stage in Event Horizon: Dark Descent #4. And that focus makes this one of the most intense segments of the story yet. It’s a disturbing look into the past of what seems to be a decent man, tainted by the touch of a demon that’s having fun torturing him.
