A 250 word (or less) review of the second Criminal
collection
By Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Icon Comics
Lawless is the second Crime Noir masterwork by Ed Brubaker
and Sean Phillips. This time the story follows Tracy Lawless, a burn-scared
special forces veteran, on a quest to find his brothers killer. To find the
killer Tracy joins his brother’s old gang as a driver and, in doing so, becomes
enmeshed in the life and crimes of his brother. Lawless, in proper Criminal tradition,
leans heavily on Noir genre tropes of crime, vengeance, doomed romance, and the
inexorable slide into chaos that occurs when events conspire against the
protagonist. Unlike Coward, the first Criminal volume, which has a big action-movie
quality about it, Lawless feels much smaller, character driven, and focused.
The result is a story that is much more personal and textured which makes for a
more relentless and engrossing read. It also feels more quintessentially noir…
if that is a thing that can be said with any sort of authority. Brubakers
writing in this edition is peerless; the script delivers thrills and
tingle-inducing twists but is still organic and assured feeling. Phillips
artwork is as moody and atmospheric as ever, and has a much more refined colour
palette than that seen in Coward. Lawless, then, is a masterfully crafted comic
book that tells a riveting crime noir story that comes to life on the page. This book really makes me wonder why the Crime
genre of comics died out: when well executed they are every bit as interesting
as any superhero comic ever was.
No comments:
Post a Comment