In The Midnighter #5, the opening story arc of this series, “Killing Machine” comes to a blazing conclusion with a killer ending.  Midnighter has not fulfilled the mission for which concentration camp survivor Anton Paulus sent him back through time.  With the help of the Temporal Police or T.P.D., Midnighter is returning to the present to settle his score with Paulus, and he’s bringing back a surprisingly personal gift for his adversary.

The return of penciller Chris Sprouse to conclude this storyline closes the circle on bomb ass way to start a new series.  Will Garth Ennis be back for another arc?  I hope so.  He works Midnighter with dark edgy humor as Warren Ellis did in the early days of the character, and Ennis can match Mark Millar punch for bloody punch as he creates the kind of jagged wounds in this series that Millar did on his The Authority run.

There is a decidedly humanist edge to all this mayhem.  In his comics, as in his other works, life is precious, making it all the more appalling that so many lives come to such horrific endings.  I’m not quite embarrassed that I find it all so entertaining.

8/10