Fatale #20 – Review

By: Ed Brubaker (story), Sean Phillips (art), Elizabeth Breitweiser (colors)

The Story: Jo demonstrates her own brand of vigilante justice by kissing a serial murderer.

The Review: Coming on this title as late as I did, I never got much of a chance to see Jo as she presently stands, which is to say, at her most competent.  Not that being vulnerable has made her any less dangerous; if the fates of Amsterdam are anything to go by, Jo can definitely bring the “fatal” in “fatale.”  But that’s only made me even more interested in seeing how Jo handles herself when she has all her physical and mental faculties in order.

Unsurprisingly, she’s much more calculating.  From the outset, Brubaker reveals that Jo would have been fine with Nick languishing in jail until she was ready to use him: “She wasn’t supposed to be out here yet at all.  But when she heard about Nicholas Lash’s escape from custody, her carefully laid plans went right out the window.”  She rescues Nick not really out of true affection, but simply because she needs him for some other purpose.