Elephantmen #26

Written by Richard Starkings
Art by Andre Szymanowicz, Vince Lee, Moritat, Boo Cook, Axel Medellin, and Marian Churchland

I find it odd that the main reason why I dropped Brightest Day from my pull-list is the same reason why I like this latest issue of Elephantmen:  the way in which it is telling a number of different, interconnected stories, in a very episodic manner.  I find it doesn't work at all in BD, but here it does.

This issue slowly continues the recent plot about the two SIMM androids that have shown up.  Vanity Case discovers that she was manipulated by one, while Sahara, on a 'Coming to America' style walkabout, gets stalked by another.  The main characters of this book - namely Hip Flask and Ebony Hide, barely get any screen time at all, instead giving the spotlight to the aforementioned characters, as well as checking in on Miki.

The longest segment of the issue is given over to Janis Blackthorne, the new partner of our two favourite transgenics.  Blackthorne has an interesting past, and while the narrative explains her history, the artists (Moritat and Cook) show us what she was up to during the war.  It's a very nicely done sequence.

In fact, the art is pretty strong throughout this issue.  I love Churchland's pages the best, but was also happy to see Szymanowicz, Moritat, and Cook on the book.  The only artist I wasn't particularly fond of was Medellin's Sahara pages, which were fine, just a little more cheesecake-y than I usually like.