Stories about men who are immortal have been done before. How can it be made fresh? Let the man discover his immortality during a suicide attempt!
Written by John Mahoney and Filip Sablik
Illustrated by Thomas Nachlik
Alec King is a small time thief and con man who has always run away from responsibility. When he and his partner get in over thier heads after being blackmailed into becoming hitmen and his partner is killed in the process, Alec tries to escape one last time. Alec attempts to take his own life, only to discover he cannot die. What would you do if you had nowhere left to run?$19.99 / 160 pages
I mentioned this review was coming back when I covered “Echoes.” I was first introduced to this story through Top Cow’s “First Look” trade in 2010. The first issue peaked my interest enough for me wait for the trade without browsing later issues. Unfortunately, my local comic shop didn’t order a copy, and I didn’t get around to finding it until C2E2 this past spring, when I bought it directly from Filip Sablik. After a wait that long, my expectations were pretty high.
The collected edition begins with an introduction by Victor Gischler, who does a decent job of getting a reader excited for the coming story. It doesn’t provide much context, background, or fun facts, so it’s entirely skippable if you’re not interersted in introductions.
Let me start by praising the concept. The story was a frest twist on some old concepts, and it was obviously lovingly crafted. Alec’s character and background is one of the most nuanced I’ve seen in comics, or any other medium for that matter. My only nitpick for the story is in chapter three, when a character sees Alec survive blatantly mortal wounds twice without comment. Maybe she was supposed to be in shock, but she seems lucid enough to all the other events around her.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Mahoney and Sablik had the collected edition in mind when they wrote this book. The chapter breaks have awkward exposition, and each issue begins at the end before telling the events leading to that end. That narrative structure works well in single issues, but not in a trade unless each the timeframe spans the whole trade. As is, the first page of every chapter just feels horribly out of place.
The art was not my favorite. It was true black and white, with no shading or grayscale at all. Judging by the lighter-inked flashbacks, the pencils were relatively clear. However, the stark contrast provided by the inks sometimes made it hard to tell what was going on. In more than one instance, I had to study a page to decipher the background, and that’s not a good thing. The photo-realism of the art caused some of the characters’ poses to look stiff, which didn’t help the mood.
Lastly, there’s the pricetag. This smaller-sized hardcover is asking $20 for content originally priced at $12. That’s a hefty bump, even for the load of extras. Given the single issues are availble for less than cover price on eBay, and the hiccups between chapter breaks, I’d recommend them over the hardcover, and suggest browsing the bonus features if you like the story.
Final Verdict: 6 – Browse
