Thief of Thieves #2

Written by Robert Kirkman and Nick Spencer
Art by Shawn Martinbrough

We knew from the first issue that Redmond is a master thief, and that he's spent a long time planning a big job in Venice.  We met his assistant/partner, and how they started to work together.  We also got a strong sense that Redmond wanted out of the thieving business, but not much more than that.  A comic about a guy not stealing things is usually less interesting than one about a guy who is, and therein lies the challenge of this series.  The only way to make that work is through strong writing, and strong characters.

Well, this issue has all those things.  We learn a lot more about Redmond this month, like for example, that his name is Conrad, and that at one point, he was married and has a son somewhere.  His ex-wife is the sister of an earlier partner, and when he joins her for dinner one night, we learn that she did everything in her power to get him to quit his 'job' back when they were together, and so greets the news of his retirement with anger. 

Basically, this whole issue is a further study into who Conrad/Redmond is as a character, and it's pretty interesting.  Kirkman's plot and Spencer's script take their time establishing Redmond's world, and I appreciate that they aren't just rushing into a big action movie set-up (there is action thanks to a flashback).  Shawn Martinbrough's doing some very nice work on this series, although I keep thinking, when there are panels of women's faces, that I'm reading something by Tony Harris, which is kind of strange. 

Anyway, it's good stuff.