We continue the journey of Ice Cream Man. Four more strange stories are told in unique ways with the continued arc of ICM and his opposite who is out trying to save the people he’s making suffer. The first issue is about suicide. We follow the thoughts of a man who has jumped from a skyscraper and a woman who has noticed it and is trying to do something about it. It’s very thought-provoking and goes pretty deep into the dark side of why someone would want to do this. Of course, no happy endings here, but ICM’s hated friend shows up again.

The second issue is weird, and it took two reads to understand it. There are no words in this issue but is told as a “Neopolitan panel” type story. Each panel is colored like ice cream and features three different timelines of a man. When he’s young, middle-aged, and possibly an alternate timeline of him being captured and tortured. It was a bit confusing at first, but the back of the issue explains it in more detail. While I feel like anyone who bought this full price would have felt upset with the lack of words, there is a story here that’s fairly sad and after a couple of flip throughs it kind of gets to you.

The third story is about imaginary friends and things get really creepy and gory here with ICM. He really starts to show more of what he is and wants. The story can feel pretty real with a father who doesn’t want to placate his daughter’s imaginary friend after her best friend dies of cancer, but the mother doesn’t think it’s harmful. It gets incredibly dark and violent, and we get some of ICM’s story here.

The last issue goes into drug addiction again, but on a professional level between two paramedics. The story goes on about them talking about their drugs, how fun they are, and then maybe regretting it, and in the meantime ICM’s killing people on the sidelines while they miss everything. The ending is pretty messed up and cruel and shows just how incredibly heartless and evil ICM is. By this point, we really establish that this guy isn’t your friend and he will go to no end to make people suffer. With this being issue 8 we still don’t have a lot of backstory to ICM. We just keep getting teased in each issue and I really think it’s getting dragged out. He’s an interesting character and I really want to know who this cowboy guy is that keeps saving his victims.