The Good
What really brings this whole issue together and keeps a good sense of flow with the story is the narration, which comes by way of a journal entry from Lewis. Not only does it gives us more insight into how this character feels, but it feels like a journal entry and not something forced onto the reader. Writer Chris Dingess does a stellar job with this and the dialogue throughout.
Each issue, with this issue in particular, does a good job at catching up new readers. Sure, it's only four issues in, but the opening pages do a great job at giving the reader an idea of what's been happening. Even if you aren't a new reader, a quick refresher is nice and Dingess does more than just recap. He gets into more detail, so it doesn't feel like he's retelling the story.
The last few pages, of this issue, were fantastic. In fact, the whole story with Floyd turning from man to Flora-monster is by far the most interesting part of the issue and something the reader will become heavily invested in. Floyd isn't the most interesting character, but knowing that this team, who is walled-in this small town, hiding from the beasts in the outside world, also has something just has dangerous living with them is a real cool additive to this man vs nature story. That final page, featuring Floyd looks fantastic. That's some great art by Matthew Roberts and colors by Owen Gieni. It's a very disturbing image.
The Bad
The one moment fans would be dying to see, in this issue, is when Sacagawea takes down a horde of buffalotaur on her own. It's this HUGE moment in the issue that completely changes the direction of the story and what Lewis and Clark have planned for the group. This giant action sequence is retold in one page, with four panels.
That was another big problem with this issue in particular. The first three issues moved at a very different speed than this one. We got a great mixture of story and action, but this issue puts all the action on hold and takes the one scene fans are really going to want to see and essentially makes it exposition. Sure, readers get to see what happens in a page, but the event is a bit bigger than that. This issue is slow and really builds, which is ok, but a completely contrast to previous issues. This book is ok, but doesn't really get great until the last few pages, and by the time you get there, it's already over.
The Verdict
MANIFEST DESTINY #4 is one of those bizarre cases where the book isn't a 3/5, but it's not good enough to get that shove to 4/5, and since we don't deal in half stars at CV, it get's a 3. While the overall story is still very good, there were some pacing problems here as well as the fact that a major action sequence, which would have been amazing, was cut down to one splash page. In fact, this book really didn't start getting exciting until those final few pages. MANIFEST DESTINY is still a phenomenal book, but this particular issue was down the middle of the road.