Lazarus #8 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark with Brian Level (art & letters) and Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: Forever begins to piece together the terrorist mystery.

TheReview (with SPOILERS): This was the issue where things began to click together.  Through the first cycle of stories, Greg Rucka and Team have created a very intricate, detailed and entertaining dystopian future that is highlighted by the ruling families and their respective Lazaruses (Lazari?) – supersoliders who manage the families respective security operations.

We’ve also been introduced to the concept of the castes of society (Family, Serfs and Waste) and seen how unequal society is with the Ruling Families living in opulence, Serfs in a sort of middle class existence and Waste in abject poverty.

A few issues ago, Rucka started spinning this tale of of a family of Waste who were headed to Denver in an attempt to be “uplifted” to Serf status.  Their trip has had a sort of “Wizard of Oz” feel to it as this family has endured struggle and death to reach Denver, but they were extremely excited to get uplifted.  Then last issue we saw that the line of desperate Waste auditioning for Serf status stretches for miles outside of the Denver city limits.

At its heart, Lazarus is really a class warfare tale.  It is supposed to be a funhouse mirror version of what our current society could be like if the 0.01% keep getting richer and the economy continues to provide few jobs for everyone else.  That’s why it is such a fun story.  Rucka isn’t saying that this is what WILL happen if things continue along a current path, but it has enough similarities that people can follow along.  Probably any reader who has been jobless knows how the Waste feel.  Anyone who has had a terrible job for a terrible boss, but needs the salary, knows how the Serfs feel.

Lazarus #7 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark (art and letters), Brian Level (art assists) and Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: Forever continues trying to unravel a terrorist conspiracy.  Waste see different paths to being uplifted.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): Another very powerful issue of Lazarus.  This is just about the perfect series for me.  The art is great.  I like the characters.  I love the dystopian near-future setting.  And I LOVE the attention to detail.

This things that I like best in this issue are the subtle moments.  One is when we see poor little Forever being trained as a little girl by Marisol.  Little Forever is so much more composed and collected than a typical 12/13 year old, but there are the moments when you remember she is still just a little girl.  You can train her and beat her with a stick to teach her stoicism, but she’s still a little girl who needs a hug sometimes.  Anyone who has a child can’t help but be touched by the situation and the art.  Kids that age alternate between impressing us SO much that they are nearly adults: They can handle complex concepts, do physically challenging things and start to say things that don’t sound entirely foolish, then the next second, they are crying and after your initial “WTF?” reaction, you remember that they are only 12 years old.  Rucka and Lark (especially Lark) are capturing that age perfectly here.

The other aspect of the comic I really enjoyed were the two different paths to uplift presented to these waste.  On one hand, we continue following this group that is trying to do uplift the right way.  They’re trekking across the country, dealing with death and banditry and awfulness…..but they are going to Wallyworld and look forward to the wonderfulness.  Only they get there and see a line that runs 20-30 miles out of the city of similarly desperate people who want to be uplifted too.  Not many people are going to get their dream.  That’s what they get for trying to be uplifted via the standard procedure.

Lazarus #6 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark (art/letters), Santi Arcas (colors)

The Review (with SPOILERS): This is a little bit of a quiet issue of Lazarus because it is totally a “middle chapter” of a bigger story.  We get a little bit more of Story A, a little more of Story B, a little more of Story C, etc.  But the pieces aren’t fully connecting yet, so it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions.  There are some definite themes emerging and we can speculate about future plot directions, but Greg Rucka is so well-read and aware of stereotypes, that I suspect most of those speculations won’t come true.

We spend some of this issue on two Forever stories.  In the present, we see that she is clearly beginning to see some of the injustice of the current status quo where a few wealthy families control everything.  Remember back to the first issue where she killed that group of “waste” for stealing food from Family Carlyle?  Well, this time, she just kinda watches the thieving waste watches from the shadows.  She clearly could have stopped/killed these “waste”, but she elects to let them go.  And they’re not stealing food, but things like tanks of gas.  They’re making a bomb (probably) and she lets them go.  Hmmm…

Now, she isn’t totally derelict in her security duties for the Family as she does question one of the other “waste” about what the others are doing with the tanks of gas.  So, Forever still has that familial loyalty that was brainwashed into her at a very young age (and maintained by handfulls of pills that she may or may not be taking).  Still, you can see the cracks at the seams.  She is beginning to question her role in this system.  It’ll be ugly when it breaks.

Lazarus #5 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark with Brian Level (art & letters) and Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: Forever has to track down her traitorous brother!

The Review (with SPOILERS): This was an interesting issue that diverted slightly away from the main “story” of the series to give us more background and flavor of the bigger world.

The main story of the series seems to be that of political intrigued amongst the adult Carlyle children.  We saw in last story arc how Jonah failed in his attempt to seize control of the Family and was forced to flee.  This issue does pay some attention to that “main story”, but it is mostly concerned with letting us learn more about the dystopian future where the story takes place.

It was interesting to meet the forces of another ruling family: The Bittners.  Two things that I love about the encounter between Forever and her Dagger Team and the Bittners…  One is how completely bad ass Forever is.  Not only is she scary as hell, you know that if she wanted to, she could wade across the river and kill all those redneck Bittner soldiers.  But she doesn’t have to, she makes the Bittners execute their own man on the spot, which is somehow even more bad ass.  Just the way that Michael Lark draws her shows how noble and above the fray she is.  So much of the story of Lazarus is about this distinction between Family members, the Serfs (like the Dagger soldiers) and the “waste”.  You can really see a visual difference.  Forever is better than these soldiers – on both sides.  She knows it, they know it.  It isn’t even a question.

Lazarus #4 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark (art & letters), Brian Level (art assists), Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: Forever recovers from an assassination attempt.

Review (with SPOILERS): This is another very strong issue of Lazarus.  Even if I have a few nitpicks, I’m becoming more and more interested in the series.

The action picks up moments before the assassination attempt against Forever and Joacquim from last issue.  But – cleverly – we don’t just watch the two of them get bombed and then stand up, dust themselves off and start fighting the bad guys.  Instead we get this nifty scene from the Family Carlyle compound that acts as a control base for Forever.  Of course, the first thing they notice is that she has stopped moving; why has she stopped?  You can imagine monitoring the situation and not knowing when someone stopping means there is a problem and when it just means they’ve stopped.  It’s a little like when a friend goes for a walk after dark, but doesn’t really tell you when they’ll be back: When do you start to worry?

Lazarus #3 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark (art/letters), Stefano Gaudiano & Brian Level (art assists), Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: Political intrigue swirls within and between the ruling families.

Review (with slight SPOILERS): This is another pretty snappy issue for this promising series.  Already, by this third issue, Rucka and Lark have settled the story into a very comfortable pace and I’m enjoying it a lot.

The thing that strikes me most about this issue is just how confident it feels.  Both Greg Rucka and Michael Lark have been around the block a time or two.  You know how sometimes you read a new series by new creators and it feels like they’re trying to blow your mind with an incredible story concept or an awesome splash page?  There’s none of that going on in Lazarus.  It’s kinda like Rucka and Lark just know that they have a good story and they know that if they tell it in a proper way, it’ll be enjoyed by fans and sell pretty well.  There’s no need for extra bombast or hype…it’s just a high quality story.  As I read this issue, it just felt like a supremely competent issue by guys who know how to make comic books and tell stories.

That competence and confidence is important because a lot of the themes that seem to be developing in Lazarus are a little derivative.  This issue shows our main character Forever (the ultimate weapon of the Carlyle family) meeting her counterpart of the Morray family.  Immediately, they have this kind of warriors’ respect for each other.  That isn’t anything we haven’t seen in a ton of war movies: Tomorrow we may kill each other, but for tonight we are brothers-in-arms.  Forever and Joacquim respect each other and understand the odd position they are both in, but they’ll do their duty if their family tells them to fight.

Lazarus #2 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark (art & letters), Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: The Carlyle family comes together to deal with the fallout of Morray family attack.

The Review (with SPOILERS): This was a pretty strong second issue of Lazarus.  While reading, I was struck by how different Lazarus is from some other recently debuted series that I really enjoy – like East of West or Saga.  Lazarus #1 did such an effective job of establishing the setting that by this second issue we’re already beginning to get a real story.  You know how it is… Most clever new series rumble along for 4-5 issues with novelty being the primary attraction; everything is cool and new and funky and it isn’t until you’re 6 months in that you realize you still don’t really understand the central conflict at all…..much less whether you find the central conflict to be very interesting.  I can think of a few comics that lost some steam as they turned the corner from “cool concept” to ongoing story.  Concepts are really overrated.  Even us readers have cool concepts sometimes.  It’s much harder to do something interesting and useful with the concept.

In this issue, we just dive right in and get to watch the inner workings of the Carlyle family. And man… The adult Carlyle children are SERIOUSLY screwed up!  They are immoral, nasty, backstabbers and more than one of them may be incestuous.  Yes…you read that correctly: “more than one”.  And I don’t mean that in the sense that “it takes two to tango,” I mean it from the standpoint that there may be multiple pairings amongst the siblings.  I think they could “swing” if they wanted to.  Ugh… There didn’t even seem to be a token “normal” person for us readers to identify with.

Lazarus #1 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Michael Lark (art & letters) and Santi Arcas (colors)

The Story: In the future, the world is controlled by powerful families who each have one ultra-powered member to keep the plebians in-line.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): I love when comics like this one come out.  As I get older, I always kinda worry that someday comics will stop releasing material intended for me.  It’s a day that I know will come someday.  It’s like knowing that someday the cashiers will just stop asking to see your ID when you buy beer.  It’s part of life.  After that happens, you’ll always have your fixes of properties you enjoy (like the X-Men and Batman for me), but those aren’t comics “for me” in the same way that Scalped was “for me” or 100 Bullets was “for me”.

So, every time a really snappy new comic is released it kinda resets that countdown clock to the moment when I become the old dude complaining that modern comics stink.  That reset happened last year with Saga and it’s happened again two months in a row with The Wake and now Lazarus.  Things are looking up!

Resurrection Man #5 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Fernando Blanco (artist), Santi Arcas (colorist)

The Story: Don’t think of it as dying, Mitch—think of it as God asking you out on a date.

The Review: It’s been hard to take Resurrection Man seriously, both as a character and as a hero.  A lot of it has to do with his very conception.  I’ve said this before, but the idea of a hero who seemingly can’t die takes out half the tension of the story, and the fact that Mitch has no memory of who he is and thus no connections which can be threatened means another huge chunk of tension is lost as well.

And if most of the tension is gone, all you have left is a bunch of things happening without any feeling of investment in them.  I don’t know about you, but that’s how I feel about almost every plotline running through this series.  The stuff about Heaven and Hell fighting over Mitch’s soul has become so redundant, and with so little point, that you almost wish either one will finally get it in their grasp so as to introduce a little bit of conflict into the story.

The use of the Transhuman and Body Doubles also feels bland and empty.  The Body Doubles have added little to the title except for a little exposition and a lot of cheesecake, and the Transhuman, aside from a couple interesting beats, has offered even less.  This issue sees them doing almost nothing at all, and with Mitch out of the picture, they seem at a loss of what to do with themselves, other than futilely attacking Suriel (for revenge, I suppose?).

When I say Mitch is out of the picture, I mean he’s no longer active in the present story.  Obviously, with a title like Resurrection Man, it’d be a major misnomer if he actually managed to die for good in the fifth issue, so have no fear—he comes back.  And that’s exactly what I mean about the lack of tension.  When last issue ended with Suriel pouting that she might have killed him permanently this time, you knew that couldn’t possibly be true, so the fact Mitch comes back this time is no surprise at all.

Resurrection Man #4 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Fernando Dagnino (artist), Santi Arcas (colorist)

The Story: You know, he’s just as sick and tired of dying as you are of killing him.

The Review: The biggest problem with this series so far has been its relentless repetition.  Each issue has featured Mitch’s death and subsequent resurrection, a slice of cheesecake and violence from the Body Doubles, and some supernatural mumbo-jumbo from celestial forces either above or below.  This has made the title feel rote and predictable, a death mark for any ongoing series.

In a lot of ways, this issue continues to fill that tiresome mold, which needs to change, pronto.  Every scene features at least a couple characters mentioning points that DnA have already well established, whether it’s the Body Doubles on their resilience (“We’re posthuman.  Waaay beyond your crude cybernetic junk.  Waaaaay beyond.”) or Suriel on Mitch’s prized soul (“…so frighteningly overdue, so staggeringly mortgaged, the note has been passed up to the most extreme collection agency of all.”).

But this time around, we also get a few redeeming reveals that give the plot a bit of a kick.  The most important is Bonnie implying that Mitch and the Body Doubles were once possibly on the same side: “…I used to respect you.  For your work, and everything.”  And when Suriel later reveals that the Doubles work as “enforcers for one of the darkest sectors of America’s military-industrial complexes,” you can see how it connects to Mitch’s past military work, as recalled by Mr. Roth in #2.

Speaking of whom, another major twist in the story comes when Mr. Roth—or the Transhuman, as he’d prefer to be known—divulges the fact that his fancy-pants suit runs on his own life-force and that he’s actually “nineteen years old!”  While it’s not clear how DnA plan to incorporate this rather weird turn of events into the story, but at least it ensures the Transhuman will remain a fixture of this title for a while, until his aging problem gets resolved, one way or another.

Resurrection Man #3 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Fernando Dagnino (artist), Santi Arcas (colorist)

The Story: What did your mother tell you about making deals with intangible, formless entities?

The Review: Here’s a theory about gimmicks: use them judiciously, and they can be an entertaining plot device (Zatanna’s backwards talk, or Dial H for Hero); let them fly without check and now you’ve got a one-note plot that seems repetitive and thin as a result.  At a certain point, readers catch on to the idea, the formula becomes too familiar, and then all the tension that makes a story worthwhile goes out the window.

That’s not quite happening here yet, but this title gets right on the verge of it.  When you have Mitch coming back to life twice in rapid succession, it just emphasizes how much suspense you lose when you have a character who can’t die.  To fill that vacuum, DnA offer instead a roulette wheel of powers our hero can rise again with, but since the ability he ends up with seems pretty random, you don’t get much satisfying speculation out of that either.

Then there are our antagonists, the Body Doubles, who have their own formidable resilience.  Essentially, the action consists of people duking it out passionately, but with no real reason to do so since none of them have any fear of permanent harm.  When Carmen gets a broken jaw, or Bonnie blown through a wall by a sonic wail, or Mitch shot with armor-piercing rounds, you know none of it matters, so you simply move on, unmoved.

About the only time a real sense of peril enters the issue is during Mitch’s rather brief sojourn “in between.”  There, Mitch has no resurrecting body at his disposal, only his immortal soul—which, apparently, can be eaten.  Unfortunately, this precious period of vulnerability gets squandered on a long, rambling monologue full of eye-rolling euphemisms, about how forces “upstairs” and “downstairs” want Mitch for their own because “You keep not dying and it’s causing problems.  Bookkeeping problems.  Columns ain’t balancing.”

None of this, by the way, reveals anything we haven’t already figured out for ourselves or advances any of the storylines at stake: Mitch’s quest for his past; the shadowy people who set the Body Doubles after him in the first place; and not even with the actual running plot thread about Suriel et al’s attempts to capture him.

Resurrection Man #2 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Fernando Dagnino (artist), Santi Arcas (colorist)

The Story: Getting chased by two hot ladies sounds pretty great in theory, and yet…

The Review: We don’t know too much about Mitch Shelley, the Resurrection Man, but in his defense, he doesn’t know too much about himself either.  It’s not the most unusual twist in the world when a comic book character knows more about his superpowers than his own past, but at least you’re never in want for mystery.  That said, the writers must take on the responsibility of keeping you interested if they want to keep you out of the loop.

One way to do that is to create a character who engages you with his personality alone, if not his background.  So far, you can’t say Mitch does much of that.  While not unlikable in any way, he just seems too buttoned-up and straight-laced to get very attached to his character.  At times, he becomes a cipher in his own comic, acting as instrument to deliver or acquire more information for us, but not actually doing much in particular.

The most we get to see of Mitch’s humanness (so to speak) is in the way he deals with Mr. Roth, a co-resident at the residential care home where Mitch’s dad spent his last days.  These scenes play very well, but mostly because Mr. Roth himself has such a lively personality of his own, being old-school bananas: “I was a super-villain.  Professional.  High tech end of the market.  They called me the Transhuman.  Maybe you heard of me?”  Mitch: “Ooo-kay.”

At least we glean a few interesting tidbits about Mitch’s past.  We learn he, like his father, was a scientist.  We know he used to work in corporate research, with ties to the government.  We also know that Mitch might have been something of a cold workaholic (Mr. Roth says, grinning, “You didn’t much give me the time of day, then, I recall.”).  From that we can take a few guesses as to a possible source of Mitch’s powers, but we don’t gain much more than that.

Resurrection Man #1 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Fernando Dagnino (artist) Santi Arcas (colorist)

The Story: He takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.

The Review: If you want to give such a character another try at the popular market, it’s worth examining their core concept to see what made them a cult hit the first time around.  You won’t have too difficult a time recognizing the macabre appeal of Resurrection Man.  We often joke about death being no great obstacle in the world of comics, but the entire basis of R. Man’s powers and actions spring from his rising from the dead.

While the idea on paper sounds a little tongue-in-cheek, DnA, R. Man’s creators, manage to portray the concept in credibly tense fashion.  Right from the start we get to see his powers in action as he awakens on a morgue’s gurney and proceeds to sneak out, acquire some clothes and funds, and assess the skill set he comes back with this time.  He does all this with the systematic nonchalance of a veteran, which rings home just how often he’s had to repeat this process.

Of course, you have the big two questions: how and why?  While the “how” remains mostly a mystery, we get a couple intriguing clues as to the reason for his being.  Upon each revival, he has “a new…thing that I just have to do.  A gut feeling I can’t ignore.”  Your first instinct may lean towards the theory that a higher power guides him, but then you have to wonder: which higher power?  From the looks of things, both the guys “upstairs” and “the basement office” want R. Man’s soul.  So if he’s being compelled to act, who’s responsible for the compulsion?

Like many of the “Dark” titles, this issue doesn’t hesitate to offer some food for thought along with the action.  DnA set up the story so we get a very intimate look at a few of the individuals R. Man’s meant to encounter and presumably help.  When the rug ultimately gets pulled out from under us, the tragedy of the scene really comes through, its hopelessness emphasized by his flight companion, who informs him that the people’s fates had already been sealed, making you wonder if R. Man’s being brought back time and again for a purpose or as a cruel joke.