“Goners” #3 continues to deliver the unfurling saga of the Latimer family as told by writer Jacob Semahn, artist Jorge Corona, colorist Gabriel Cassata and letterer Steve Wands. This issue gives readers a little more history while continuing to build the world around the Latimers in King’s Bluff, where readers last saw the primaries of the cast plummeting from a window.

An opening scene doubles as a prologue for the entire adventure, and sends readers back to the Alamo, which was more supernaturally charged than previously believed. Juxtaposed with the current Latimer predicament in King’s Bluff, readers are led to believe the problems of today have roots that stretch farther back than “Goners” #1, when we all met Zoe, Josiah and the rest of the Latimers.

Corona’s cartoon-tinged artwork packs exaggerated expressions and undermines the eerie tragedy seeping through “Goners” #3 as the two Latimer children try to find their way in a terrifying world that has them on the run. Zoe and Josiah Latimer continue to evade the Terrors, but find a mysterious benefactor offering them unspecified assistance. Semahn constructs a believable reaction that is met with equally believable and markedly horrific consequences before ultimately smacking readers in the face with a horrific twist from the early seeds in the first pages of “Goners” #3. Along the way, Semahn continues to expand the cast, introducing readers to Ezra Jones and other denizens of this fantastic, fear-filled world.

Corona and Cassata collaborate brilliantly, using a dynamic combination of Ben-Day dots, gradients and shadows to keep “Goners” #3 looking modern, but feeling older. This series isn’t quite “timeless,” but the artists provide enough fluidity in the art to keep the story viable for future reads. On occasion the colors get overzealous, bleeding through layers a little too completely, like the bright red blood on the Latimers who are in the fountain and should be wet. Granted, this is a visual translation that works better with film than drawings, but bodily fluids in contact with other fluids really should be muted a bit. On the other side of that, Cassata plugs in brilliant luminescence when required. As Zoe reflects on the damage done to the Latimer household, the scene is wonderfully illuminated with what needs to be described as a magical glow.

As Semahn writes in the letters page for this issue, “Well…shit.” Which is one of two visceral reactions sure to hit the reader. “Goners” #3 has an ending readers will never see coming, even if they try to suss it all out from some cryptic, spoiler-free review.