Ten Grand #4 – Review

By: J. Michael Straczynski (story), Ben Templesmith (art)

JMS and Ben Templesmith are writing a hopelessly romantic comic; introducing new and interesting mythologies to the genre. The characters exist in the real world and are subject to the rules and physics of the world around us, but there are hacks and secret passages and rules that govern the twilight regions between this world and (for lack of a better term) the “afterlife”.

Straczynski is very clear that these aren’t alternate dimensions or some other sci-fi type of convention. This is heaven and hell and purgatory, demons and angels, sins and sinners. Joe Fitzgerald is a private detective who knows a great deal (but not everything) about the rules and shortcuts that govern access to the afterlife. His wife is dead but because of the arcane rules that control his life, Joe has the opportunity to interact with his wife in a small slice of paradise for just a few minutes whenever he dies in the pursuit of an honorable end. It is during one of these moments that Joe realizes that there is something wrong in heaven and his wife is being pursued by dark forces. Joe is determined to call in every favor and use every trick that he knows in order to rescue his wife.

Ten Grand #1 – Review

By: J. Michael Straczynski (writer), Ben Templesmith (art) and Troy Peteri (letters)

The Story: A hard-boiled PI gets involved with a demonic cult.

Review (with very minor SPOILERS): There’s not a whole lot to say about this comic.  The story is derivative and not reason enough to buy the comic, and while Templesmith’s art is pretty strong, you can get Templesmith art from various collected editions because he’s not really breaking new ground (for him) here.

So what makes me call the story derivative?  Well, the main character is a private investigator or hit man or something.  I guess most people would call him “hard boiled” because that’s a shorter word than “unshaven, dirty, rumpled clothes, heavy drinker, no family”.  Of course, this dude works out of the seedy side of town where he gets approached by a young woman who wants him to do a job. And (of course) she is earnest and (of course) she can only barely afford his fee and (of course) the case has some past connection to the PI.  It’s just very cliche and since it happens in the first few pages of the comic, your attention is already beginning to wander.