Letter 44 #9 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: This time, it’s the First Lady who betrays her husband.

The Review: If you’re a politician—any politician—you want me as a constituent because I’m pretty compassionate as far as terrible policy decisions go. I always try to keep in mind that making decisions for other people’s lives, especially in a country as diverse as ours, is nerve-wracking work even with the best of intentions and a minimum of outside interests. It may be naïve of me, but I tend to think politicians aren’t really bad people, just more susceptible to confusion and impulse than most.

So I can’t tell whether Carroll’s general horribleness is exaggerated or true-to-life. I suspect the former. Not only does he reveal that every bad piece of policy he ever made was on purpose, he’s completely unapologetic for them. In talking about the choices that led to the country’s economic crisis, he says, “My finance people warned me that it would all collapse eventually, but that didn’t matter. As long as I got my laser guns and robots, the bubble was the next guy’s problem.”

Letter 44 #8 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: Universal healthcare and military escalation, all in one day. Mixed signals, Mr. President.

The Review: I’m an English major and an aspiring lawyer. Taken together, that means I spend a lot of time reading more into things than perhaps are actually there. In my mind, nearly everything has symbolic value, no matter how insignificant. Get me in a supermarket parking lot, and if I see someone scraping their cart atop some random curb, I can start rhapsodizing about the decline of civilization by human carelessness within seconds. It’s a gift, I know.

However inappropriate it is to wield this gift in the real world, it’s a very useful thing in fiction. Let’s take Stephen’s smoking for example. By keeping this otherwise innocent habit a secret, he turns it into a potential scandal if anyone should find out. He even goes as far as to hide it from Isobel, suggesting he has no qualms about deceiving his loved ones in addition to the general public. And the fact that he forces one Secret Service agent to carry the cigs for him, then pushes his used one in the FBI director’s hand as soon as he sees Isobel coming, indicates that Stephen doesn’t hesitate to use other people as shills and scapegoats.

Letter 44 #7 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Joëlle Jones (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: If you’re going to mine diamonds from Russia, make sure to ask the Russians first.

The Review: Among Letter 44‘s many unusual qualities, the one that sticks out the most is the fact that it started with the action well underway, the Clarke crew having already closed in on their destination. This meant that the characters had gone past the getting-to-know-you stage and were now too busy dealing with the plot to reveal much about themselves for our benefit. Even so, the series is half a year old, which means it’s time for us to know more about the people we’re working with.

This flashback issue thus couldn’t have come at a better time. Soule wisely chooses not to disperse the attention to the lives of the entire crew at once, instead focusing on Charlotte, arguably the lead of the series, and Dr. Rowan,* the crew member revealed to be MIA in #3. There’s no long-term plotwork here; given that we’re in the past, we already know what this manned space mission being offered to Charlotte and Rowan is about. This issue is pure character work, getting us to more deeply sympathize and admire the cast we’ve grown familiar with.

Letter 44 #6 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: There’s never a Maury Povich audience in space when you need one!

The Review: I don’t often get what I want from a story, so any time I do is cause for celebration—on my part, at least. Right now, some imaginary confetti is in order as Letter 44 finally gives me what I’ve asked for months: a Clarke-centric issue. Not that I’m completely uninterested in what’s happening in the Stephen Blades administration, but as Stephen himself admits, even if only superficially, “The things happening down here pale in comparison to what you’re doing out there.”

True enough, but that’s not to say that what Stephen’s doing doesn’t have a huge impact on the U.S. and the world at large. I’m not talking about his political maneuvering with Carroll, in which the ex-president offers all sorts of perfectly rational reasons for his now infamous letter, disappearance, and alleged involvement with Elijah’s “stroke.” Perhaps fed up with such petty distractions, Stephen brings the hammer down hard on his predecessor with a letter of his own, in which he promises to reverse Carroll’s policy choices, rid his administration of all Carroll influences, and take a strict eye-for-an-eye policy with any future Carroll-directed attacks.*

Ghost #3 – Review

By: Kelly Sue DeConnick & Chris Sebela (story), Geraldo Borges (pencils), Andy Owens (inks), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: Well, if a demon possession doesn’t ruin your childhood memories, nothing will.

The Review: While a new series that starts with a B- is not doomed by any means, it’s definitely not a good sign of things to come. Presumably, the first issue calls for the creative team to put their best feet forward, with the idea that they might have to take a few steps back later on. When the first issue fails to inspire, as Ghost #1 did, it places a burden on the creators to rev up their game the next time around instead of slowing down to a coast. Unfortunately, #2
didn’t do that, either.

That leaves this issue in a bad spot, having to meet the near-impossible task of making up for the deficiencies of its predecessors. To cut to the chase, it fails. Nearly every weakness that’s sprouted in the last two issues simply takes deeper root here, starting with our protagonist. In terms of likability or any kind of relatable quality, Elisa is simply untouchable, and not just because she’s literally untouchable, though this is a problem as well.

Letter 44 #5 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: Intellectual curiosity kills the scientist.

The Review: Soule is no dummy, so I can’t believe that he doesn’t have some purpose in making Letter 44’s former President Carroll as easily analogized to the real former President Bush as he has. It’s possible some of Soule’s political prejudices are coming into play here, but more clearly, Soule is using the conspiracy theories revolving around Bush as fictional fertilizer, giving life to these paranoid speculations for their pure, dramatic value.

Here, Soule goes well beyond the wildest dreams of all but the most extreme theorists, portraying Carroll as not only a bitter voice from the past administration, but an ominous presence who may have his hand in Stephen’s current presidential troubles. As I understand it, it’s not atypical for an ex-president to retain a security detail even after he leaves the White House. But how common is it for him to reside in a secret White House replica located in a southwestern canyon and replete with former SEALs and SpecOps? What does that exactly say about him?

Letter 44 #4 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: Stephen makes the worst hiring decision of his presidency.

The Review: It must take a certain kind of genius to write a mystery.  After all, you’ve got to be smarter than your audience if you want to keep them baffled as to where the story is going.  This is a tall order, no doubt, perhaps too tall for a writer who is simultaneously trying to grasp the intricacies of political intrigue and sci-fi phenomena.  As intelligent and ambitious as Soule is, I’m not sure he can really deliver a conspiracy of this level—at least, not in a comic.

Comics tend to move fast, especially in monthly issues.  You’re talking about twenty to thirty pages, which in prose might offer a lot of substantial development, but which is all too easily devoured as a series of static visuals.  But few readers, or writers, for that matter, are willing to endure several months of issues just to get through the beginning of a storyline.  This might explain why, four issues in, we already have the first assassination of the Blades administration.