“Flesh and Stone” rolls on with an installment that features a number of stories featuring different agents facing the horrors of this new world.
Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Illustrated by James HarrenA monster terrorizes a mountain where Howards finds a connection to his past as a prehistoric warlord. The Russians struggle with their own monsters, and in New York, the Zinco corporation operates under the mysterious directions of the Black Flame.
David: The second chapter of Flesh and Stone is here, and, well, I’m really curious as to your thoughts on this one, Brian. The issue comes from Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, James Harren and Dave Stewart, and it’s about as warm as the weather out there. Whatcha got for me here?
Brian: This was a bit of a weird read, from start to finish. I can’t quite pinpoint why it feels that way to me, but this was an unusual comic. Am I off base here?
David: If you are off base, so am I. I know what they’re doing. They’re basically passing a span of time quickly going through each season and showing off how time is progressing and how dark and dangerous the world is, as Team Johann goes back to the same exact town months later with less supplies and horses instead of mega beast machines, Iosif and Leonid deal with a city overrun with huge monsters, and the Black Flame experiments on live test subjects, but…it feels really weird doesn’t it? We’re given a progression of many of the same story beats as the last issue, and this isn’t a bad comic, but I can say it’s kind of what I was fearing after reading the last issue.
It’s weird, man.
Brian: Yeah, it felt to me, at points, like I was watching a cover band play last issue. The cover version was really interesting, but it still felt like I had seen it before.
Now that I’m out of that mixed metaphor soup, let’s talk about the issue itself. You mentioned the Black Flame adjacent sequence, which was my favorite part of the issue. I love the idea that everyone in the Black Flame’s circle essentially is bullshitting each other, while simultaneously cowering in fear.
You mentioned that you sort of feared this last issue, what tipped you off to this possibility?
David: Well, the last issue – #125 – was basically a check-in on everyone that didn’t really do anything besides just that…check in. If that was just a transition issue rather than the beginning of an arc, I’d have loved it. But instead, it was the beginning of the arc, and it felt like if that continued, it’d be an arc that tried to do everything but instead did nothing. I feared the idea of stretching the issues so thin that nothing really impacted us as readers.
Now, that didn’t happen. I still enjoyed all of the stories. My favorite sequence by far was Iosif and Leonid’s assault on one of the mega Ogdru Hem creatures, as they gave a desperate attempt to take out a monster to seemingly save the city, succeeded, and then it was revealed that the creature was just one of many. That was heartbreaking, and it was perfectly illustrated by James Harren. Whether it was the desperation or exhaustion on Iosif’s face or the sheer size and power of the monsters, Harren nailed that entire sequence. I loved it.
But because of its fit into this issue, I feel like each of the stories were weakened. To me, and this sounds overly harsh, this issue was less than the sum of its parts, and that’s a shame. I feel like the structure mitigates the power of the story and makes the whole feel more ordinary than it should. And maybe that’s the intent! Maybe they’re trying to firmly establish the new world order even more. But I can’t help but feel these stories could use some room to breathe, a less aimless feeling design.
Continued belowBrian: I can understand that position, but that wasn’t really my perception of the issue. While the issue definitely read oddly to me, I felt like the scattered focus was to show just how out of control the world is – while we checked in with various agents and their agendas, each one was made up of people barely holding onto their position, their sanity, and their life. I think the somewhat scattered approach, upon re-reading the issue, helped set the tone, and allowed Harren’s art, which is always bordering on the insane, go full out batshit crazy at points.
While the read is still a little off, for whatever reason, I found reading it a second time to be a far more enjoyable experience, and so much of that is the attention I could give to Harren’s art, when not worrying about following the story or seeing what happens next. Again, my favorite bit of the issue came from the Black Flame sequence, where the doctor, heartbreakingly, goes through the test subject’s wallet to find the picture of his daughter. Fucking Harren, man – he can do insane action and super tender stuff in the same issue like few others.
David: Yeah, and you have to give Arcudi and Mignola credit for baking in that moment. I doubt that was James going completely off script.
I don’t know, man. I liked Enos quickly becoming a leader of the people (and apparently there’s a mini power struggle between him and Johann), and I liked that Black Flame sequence…I just am not digging the structure. It makes the comic feel more like a study than a narrative. I think there’s a lot of potential here and this all could end up reading better as a collection later on, but as is, I’m not feeling it like I usually do.
Do you have any big things to tackle before grading? Apparently I’m Mr. Negative Nancy today!
Brian: I hear your frustrations, and I understand them, but I guess I view this as a nice change of pace for the book. Like I said, it was a jarring read at first, and that’s never a great thing, but I am enjoying more than you are, I suppose. I do agree that it will read better as part of a collection, but that’s true of most comics, sadly.
I did want to talk about the Enos a bit – for the last two years or so, we’ve seen the “new” humans really put into the focus, which is something I think the book really needed. Do you think that this is as ingrained as the Enoses and the Nicholses of the world are going to get? Or, at some point, do we see them become even more essential to the book? I was thinking about this because of the genuine fear I felt at the end of the issue for a character that, realistically, doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.
David: I think they already are important. I mean, Enos has had more face time this arc so far than Johann. I think we’re in a new world order where the human characters get about equal play to the more…enhanced members of the Bureau. I don’t think they’ll ever become the leads of the book, but that’s mostly in the sense that I don’t think B.P.R.D. has leads so much as members of an ensemble that get more play depending on the needs of the arc. Next arc may be all Liz. Next arc may be all Giarocco. Neither would surprise me or upset me. That’s part of what makes this book great.
And I reread the issue as well, and still found it to be a problematic read, just like I did the last issue. I think it’s just my personal issues with delivering a fragmented narrative in such a way, but I still have the issues. Granted, I was also coming off my favorite issue of B.P.R.D. of the year – issue #124 – so maybe I’m just coming down from an unexpected high.
Continued belowBrian: That all makes sense.
To me, this is a 7.5 comic – like I said, if the pacing/fragmentation were just a little less in the forefront, it would be higher. Where do you rank it?
David: I’m going to give it a 6.0. If I was rating it on individual parts, I’d probably have a similar grade to you, but as the second part of a five issue arc and as an issue, it’s problematic despite some really great elements.
Final Verdict: 6.75 – A beautifully illustrated, but ultimately oddly constructed, issue.
