Comeback #1

Written by Ed Brisson
Art by Michael Walsh

Ed Brisson has impressed me on a few occasions with his excellent short crime stories in his self-published series Murder Book, which seems to come out about once a year (and which has featured this series's artist, Michael Walsh).  Brisson writes some fantastically dark stories in that series, so I knew I'd be in for something mysterious in this, which to the best of my knowledge is his first mini-series.

Brisson plays things very close to the vest here.  I found that I learned more about the structure of this series from reading the 'next issue' blurb on the back cover than I did reading this first issue, but that's okay, because Brisson and Walsh are masters of creating atmosphere.

The comic opens with two men knocking on the door of an older man, claiming they represent the hydro company.  In no time, they have forced their way into the home, and have abducted the man.  He is taken to an empty warehouse, where he is then exposed to a very bright light, which takes him some sixty days into the future.  The trip doesn't work well for the man.

The reader slowly figures out that these men work for a company called RECONNECT (actually, the company doesn't get named in the issue) that specializes in pulling people away from their imminent deaths.  This is not cheap - we see a new client pony up five million dollars to save his wife from a car accident.  Many of the mechanics of the operation are outlined here, but everything is kept a little bit obscure and oblique.  We do learn that one of the agents doesn't want to keep working for this company, and it looks like someone is investigating them, but we don't know a whole lot more than that.

There are a lot of mysteries introduced in this issue; perhaps a few too many, with no clear idea who the 'hero' of the story is going to be.  At the same time, I trust Brisson to pull this off.  Walsh's art is very nice, in the Paul Azaceta/Michael Lark school.  The feel of this book is terrific, and I look forward to seeing where it goes next.