Young Liars #9

by David Lapham

I remember that, when Lapham was drawing Harbinger for Valiant, and Jim Shooter kept referring to him as the next Frank Miller, I didn't see any comparison between the two artists. Now, whenever I read Young Liars, that's all I can think of...

This series is consistently more outrageous than Miller's work, but without necessarily being a parody of itself, like contemporary Miller has become. Lapham's story has some form of internal logic to it, he just hasn't chosen to share very much of that with his readers yet. This issue goes a long way towards trying to explain what this series is really about. The first arc made it seem like the story was a little conventional - super-rich runaway has a bullet in her brain, which makes her act crazy, and she's surrounded herself with assholes who are helping her for their own selfish reasons. That was a pretty good plot for a character-driven story that also featured German Pinkertons and a freakish menagerie of sex slaves.

This current arc has been about alien spiders trying to take over the world, and hiding in human beings, who are also the main characters of the book. It was a little disconnected. In this issue, we learn Danny's theory about the spiders, and we get to meet Sadie's mother and half-brother. As usual, things are a little different from what they seem, and the end is a surprise. I almost passed on this book after reading the first issue, but I'm really really glad I stuck it out.