Adventures In the Non-Place
The Good: Ok, whatever crazy non-place Resurrection Man ends up in is just about the coolest thing ever. The sky is all sorts of weird shades of color, and the empty badlands type scenery is lit tered with chalk outlines. It's creepy and interesting enough on its own, AND THEN 'IT' SHOWS UP. 'It' being..... actually I still don't have a clue what 'it' is, though I have a nagging suspicion that 'it' is supposed to be Lucifer? God, I have no freaking idea. But the sheer degree of vagueness is what makes this thing such a rousing success. It's a vague silhoutte, with whisps of hair-like light swirling around its edges. Sometimes this creates a more human appearance, sometimes it makes it look completely surreal. It speaks with some of the most fantastic 'drak trickster' sort of dialogue. Every sentence uttered kept me completely enraptured by this figure, and the vague allusions of body language served to increase it's charisma. I NEVER include pictures in my reviews, but I just HAVE to show you this thing, it's just too fantastic for words.
And the art quality doesn't stop there. We're also treated to a scene similar to the cover, but far more dyanmic and horrific. We see Mitch mid-resurrection with a hodgepodge degree of completion. He's not just 'missing skin' some areas of his body have only bones, others have a few major organs, certain spots have veins, and a few muscles are there. It's not exactly groteqsue or gory, it's just seriously artistic, but still very unnerving in a great way.
The Body Doubles were a lot more fun to read in this issue, their dialogue reflecting an interesting level of nonchalance to their wicked activities. They seemed far less flat than last issue.
The fight between Resurrection Man and the Body Doubles is pretty much awesome. There's some slightly experimental panel layouts, and all sorts of fantastic dynamism.
Darryl is really coming along in his role as a crazy old man. I'm really hoping he gets to stay on as a supporting character because he's such an entertaining guy, especially the intentionally not-so-surprising-surprise-ending.
The Bad: Despite the awesome appearance of Resurrection Man on the cover, the overall presentation is just so boring. And you have to be trying pretty hard to make a guy without any skin rising out of a pool of water, screaming, boring. Maybe it's because it falls into my hated trap of 'looking like it should just be a panel in the issue.'
As much as I 'get' that it's part of their flirty nature, there's a few moments of fanservice that stick out here as completely unessecary. Like when Carmen smacks Mitch and her skirt flies up, giving the viewer a blatant shot of her panties. I'm okay with them having skimpy outfits, these girls are practically uninhibition incarnate, but a lot of the emphasis is pointless. And this is coming from the guy who vehemently believes all the nudity teases in Voodoo and Catwoman were completely essential to those stories.
Mitch was basically a supporting character to his own series for most of this issue. As a whole it seems like an interesting experiment, but it leads to the flaw that hit me the hardest. We don't get the amazing internal monologue that made the first issue so spectacular. The ridiculous depth to which Mitch adjusted to each new power was what completely sold me on this series in issue #1. #2 had no resurrections, but this issue had 2. Neither of which got any of that phenomenal monologue, although it's slightly justifiable due to the chaotic combat, but I feel like some could have been slipped in there.
In Conclusion: 4.5/5
Any flaws I could find were pretty minor nitpicks in what is a spectacular issue. After a slightly lacking drop last issue, this one returns to the standards #1 set. Although we missed out on some of the deep resurrection monologues, we were treated to some of the most beautiful few pages of ANY new 52, including Batwoman for god's sake. I might be exaggurating due to some personal biases (Not against Batwoman, but for this. I dunno if my biases are based on any past stuff, just, others might not be QUITE as blown away by those pages as I was, but see for yourself, you can't deny they are amazing looking.) The entirity of the early-middle scene of the issue completely made it, and the increased fleshing out of the characters along with the epic fight scene was just icing on the cake. The short scene of Mitch in... 'non-place' was short enough to be of perfect length, visually phenomenal, and filled with some of the most enticing dialogue ever.
