Reviews by Mike Oliveri

DARK BLUE - 2001 Written by Warren Ellis Illustrated by Jacen Burrows Avatar Press $24.95

Pop comics preacher Warren Ellis (MINISTRY OF SPACE, TRANSMETROPOLITAN) strikes again, this time with a hardcover book collecting his DARK BLUE mini-series.

And unfortunately there's hardly a damn thing I can tell you without giving away the major plot twist that hits halfway through the story. Suffice it to say Detective Christchurch works a hell of a precinct. Between brutal murders in the streets and corruption in the precinct (hell, his captain spends his day locked in his office shooting heroin), it's a wonder he's still alive. And his partner, the straight-laced, by-the-book Detective Thorogood doesn't help either. But now a mysterious killer known only as Wayman is brutally slaughtering people, leaving only the letters LD50 scrawled in blood on the walls as a clue. The frustration of the chase pushes Christchurch over the edge, and he soon finds himself resorting to brutality to get information out of informants (in the opening pages, he is seen pummeling a man nearly to death in an interrogation room). And that's when things really start going downhill... He starts having strange visions and dreams, and even moments of intangible reality as cars and people pass straight through him. It is then that the world drops out from under him, and he learns what LD50 really means. Who is he really? You'll have to read the book to find out. Overall a solid read. Very fast-paced, though it's an overall concept you've seen before (just a different vehicle to deliver it) and the ending is a bit abrupt. Jacen Burrows' (KING ZOMBIE, SKID ROZE) artwork is well-suited to the story. He works in black & white with a lot of sharp contrast and detail to make the important stuff really stand out. He does not shy away from detail, and despite the overloads of gore at times (witness the room full of dissected and beheaded bodies at the scene of a crime), he manages to keep enough control over the reader that the work is not over the top. Great stuff.

I give DARK BLUE three rabid fanboys.

Review copyright 2001 by E.C.McMullen Jr.

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