Sam and Twitch #1-8: Udaku

Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Angel Medina and Jonathan Glapion

Having recently read the new Sam and Twitch: The Writer series, I became curious about the earlier S&T comics, which were written by Brian Michael Bendis before he became the superstar writer that he is today.  In fact, his stint on this book predates his starting Powers even.  I was lucky enough to find almost the entire run of the title at a recent convention, and will be working my way through it at the pace of one issue a day for the next little while.

The first story in this series, Udaku, has our two police detectives returning to the force after an unsuccessful attempt at becoming private investigators.  The department is rife with corruption, and as soon as they come back, they begin investigating a deeply strange case involving the murder of members of a local crime family, and the occasional dirty cop.  In the early issues of this story, each murder is marked by the killer leaving behind body parts from another person.  For example, the first murder scene has four severed thumbs lying on a table, and they're all from the same person.

The cloning aspect of the story disappears as the detectives are further embroiled in a very complicated plot that involves South African gangsters and a bunch of powered guys in white suits.  Things become kind of confusing quickly, but due to Bendis's ear for dialogue, the story seems very smooth throughout.

Medina's artwork makes the story a little difficult to follow.  He's working in a Todd McFarlane/Greg Capullo knock-off style that seriously detracts from my enjoyment of the story.  I think that the reason why I never picked this comic up back in the day is because I thought it was closely related to Spawn, and had I flipped through an issue, I never would have bought it.  Looking back at this story now, which is also collected in a trade, I can see why Bendis got snatched up by Marvel.