In this comic book review of Narco #5, Marcus has a final showdown with the real killer, and all is revealed.
Narco #5
Writer: Doug Wagner
Art and Main Cover: Daniel Hillyard
Variant Cover: Daniel Hillyard
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: July 22, 2026
This review contains spoilers
As Narco #5 begins, Kase sees Marcus sitting on his front step and chats with him. They clear the air between them about Jess, Marcus admits he was wrong about everything…except for one thing: he knows who the real killer is. And from there, a plan forms.
Later on, Marcus goes to confront Dean. Dean blames him for both Jess and Violet’s deaths. He admits that for a while, he enjoyed Marcus’s blog…but then he started to figure Dean’s crimes out. He’d initially thought that, because of a trace to Jess’s Wi-Fi, she was the one responsible for the blog. But after learning that Marcus had been using her signal and credentials…hello, perfect patsy.
He gives Marcus two options: they can continue their cat and mouse game, or he can kill him there. Marcus takes a third option: having his friends come in as backup. They end up recording the confession/motive rant (signal’s jammed, though), and get into a fight with Dean.
Dean easily takes them down and intends to murder them all and let Marcus take the fall as he’s about to pass out…
Only for Marcus to get a second wind and tackle him, sending both out the window. He passes out on the way down. This turns out to save his life. Dean’s killed by the fall/the sudden stop at the end.
And Marcus and his friend group resolve to have an even stronger relationship now.
So, the reveal of Dean being the killer wasn’t that much of a shock. It was, honestly, quite clearly telegraphed. Now, when he and Marcus have their main confrontation, the shock factor comes from just how twisted this man actually is. Seriously, he dug up a dead woman specifically to get screw with Marcus some more. Keeps talking with her like she’s still alive, goes through multiple plans in rapid succession (that choice between the chase and death right there, outright murdering Marcus, killing his friends and letting him pass out to take the blame when he wakes up…
Meanwhile, Marcus had the one plan: his friends record the confession before ganging up on Dean (which…wow, the way that fell through). Makes me wonder about Dean’s background a bit. He pulls off one of those action movie protagonist deals where one dude takes out a whole group on his own.
Loved seeing Kase and Marcus’s friendship in Narco #5 as well. They’d gone from being mad at each other last issue (though with Kase willing to help Marcus out in his time of need), to talking things out at the start of this one, and finally, Kase throwing himself in front of the knife when Dean tries to kill Marcus. And thankfully, it turns out to be non-fatal, as he wakes up in the hospital near the end, along with Marcus, with Bindi and Pania right there with them.
It was also kind of neat to get a little hint of Pania’s life outside of the friend group. During the whole story, Marcus’s friend group had been seen as a whole. The first hint we get of anything outside of their connection to each other is when Dean points something out in Kase’s file. With Pania, everyone’s caught off-guard by her apparently being a kickboxer. Granted, she’s a woman in a populated area, and that’s an excellent means of self-defense. She may have done more damage to Dean if he hadn’t brought out a taser.
The expressions in Narco #5 were particularly strong, especially when Dean shows his true colors. Most of the time when we see him before this, he looks friendly enough. Approachable. With a few simple lines, though? Here’s his psycho side, and it’s out in full force.
Narco #5 answers most of the questions that came up in the narrative…who killed Jess and why, being the big one. But it wasn’t fully answered about how Marcus’s apartment burned. There’s no word of if it’s arson or an accident, or what. But we do get confirmation at the end that the possum, last seen having gone belly-up, was still alive. And that she had a baby. And the fact that Marcus is no longer alone with visiting her is a heartwarming development.
Final Thoughts
Narco #5 brings the story to a dramatic close, and proves that there’s some amount of power in friendship. It wraps things up pretty well, even if the reveal of the killer wasn’t a huge twist with how heavily foreshadowed it was.
