Comics Korner: Silent Hill Downpour Anne’s Story #3

Anne’s story is almost over.

Silent Hill Downpour had some definite problems, but it’s cutscenes and story were actually a joy to follow. Murphy’s story was wrought with twists and turns, and the ultimate fate of the character, and his past as well, was determined by the player based on the actions that they took in the game. So, the game has multiple endings, all of which involved Anne in some way, so you’ve gotta wonder which ending they’re gonna go with considering that Anne’s story is so entangled in Murphy’s. Another awkward thing about Downpour is that Anne actually makes for a much more interesting character to follow than Murphy did, and that sadly makes Anne’s story that much better than the one in the game. She’s experienced her fair share of abuse, and even sacrificed a massive amount of her body, her pride, and her sanity to get back at Murphy for turning her Dad in to an invalid. The town of Silent Hill is taking shots at Murphy, and the main leg of the story revolves around him since he’s the main character. Ironically though, we know more about Anne than we ever did about Murphy and that makes us connect with her character over his.

Silent Hill Downpour: Anne’s Story #3 keeps to the story of how Anne came to a Silent Hill protagonist level of crazy, and it’s convincingly dire in it’s portrayal. Her character really reacts in an understandable way, and her level of sacrifice makes her both dangerously dedicated and pitiable at the same time. The narrative does take some massive jumps from location and location though using the blackout cop-out to move the character in to the next part of the story without a need for motion, but it still finds a competent flow in conveying Anne’s past, which is the best part of the volume and the story thus far. The art makes for some truly scary moments, and gives the monsters a bit more form in a much more conventional way but sticks to the theme of using the monsters as imagery to punish Anne for her sins, but it also gets a little confusing when scenes get busy or hectic. A lot of the dialogue is taken from the game verbatim, but the original dialogue fits the tone and doesn’t seem out of place.

Silent Hill Downpour Anne’s Story #3 is a well told continuation with a lot of character study and some scary monsters and environments, but attempts at action using the color palette that Downpour is using makes things a little confusing and hard to follow. The ending is equal parts creepy and scary as hell while also making me look forward to seeing how they wrap up her story. It might be the attention to detail in developing her character or maybe her unconventional revenge story (and the lengths that she’s gone to get it), but I’d say it’s possible that when they chose Murphy Pendleton as the game’s protagonist and not Anne Cunningham, they chose wrong. Her story is *that* much better.