One Dark Night in Gotham
I recently saw a work of art on the internet, it was a political piece, I don't remember the title, but it was a tragic scene of the gulf coast dead animals were scattered about, thick dirty oil covered everything. In the foreground was oil covered TV on it was a news broadcast championing the fact they were featuring wall to wall coverage of Lindsey Lohan's sentencing. It was a disturbing commentary that Simone echoes in issue #2 of Endrun.
The action starts out fast and furious as the ladies rail into the mysterious White Canary. Though she is a skilled fighter, White Canary can not hope to hold out against all five of our heroes. News breaks that Black Canary is wanted in Iceland, and the local media jumps on the story like white on rice. The reporters seem to revel in every detail of Black Canary's life, which has now been leaked, twisting the most intimate events of her life into the most dark demeaning form possible. This is a hero who has saved Gotham countless times, she is a chairperson on the JLA for crying out loud, but everyone has made their judgment and found her guilty. At first it may seem overly harsh, but the reality is we see it on television every single day. If the Birds have ever had a darkest hour this is it. In a great twist the only one the Birds can turn too, is the legendary villain, the Penguin.
This is only a 4 book series, so Simone does not have a lot of time to lay things out. Things go from bad to worse super fast, and key details can get lost. However, this also makes everything super tense. The White Canary has placed a time limit, declaring one Bird will die every hour for the next six hours. So you know no matter what by the end of this night it will all be over.
Benes taps into the intense emotions that are going on, by drawing a lot of extreme close-ups focusing particularly on the character's eyes. There is a lot of pain going on, as the tragic events unfold, and Benes captures it in subtle almost tears, and in the way the light bounces of a character's glasses.
I really love how tight and too the point Simone is here. There is hardly a moment to breath, yet alone rest and collect your thoughts, yet somehow she manages to keep us connected to the characters. Our Heroes are against the wall, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
