Moriarty #6

Written by Daniel Corey
Art by Mike Vosburg and Anthony Diecidue

After reading the last issue for a second time, I started to wonder if I was going to stick with this comic or perhaps let it go.  Reading this issue, though, I feel much more committed to this title, which is impressing me in a number of ways.

To begin with, Daniel Corey is clearly having a good time writing the character of Professor Moriarty.  I never read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories - I tried a couple of times as a kid, but was never that interested.  With that in mind, I can't comment as to how faithful the portrayal of Holmes's great nemesis is, but I can say that I am enjoying this portrait of a man of great intelligence, who does not question the morality of taking expedient routes to his desires.

The story in this second story arc is concerned with the later days of British rule in Burma, the opium trade, possible clones or artificially aged children, prophetic dreams, native unrest, ballistic science, and detailed pathology.  Who couldn't love a comic like that?

I'm not used to reading a book so dense and full of information, but this does not feel like a throwback to an earlier era of comics; instead, it's an intelligent and nicely drawn historical thriller.  In other words, a rare type of comic in today's market.