“Moth & Whisper” #2

After a first issue that was pretty mythic and did a fair amount of table setting, the second issue of “Moth & Whisper” does a good job of focusing on who Niki is as they search for information on Mr. Wolfe. While there are some storytelling choices that don’t quite land, the fusion of plot and characterization is good craftsmanship and makes the second issue an overall enjoyable read.

Written by Ted Anderson
Illustrated by Jen Hickman
Colored by Jen Hickman
Lettered by Marshall Dillon
The truth about Niki’s parents and their disappearance is out there, but can Niki survive long enough to find it?

Niki’s hunt for Wolfe, takes them to a high-class party where the elite rub shoulders with the city’s criminal underclass. With billions in wealth in the room, security’s going to be extra tight—so if Niki wants to live up to the mantles of their parents, it’s going to take all their skills to make it in and out alive …

Using Niki’s internal monologue makes sense as a narrative device in “Moth & Whisper,” it’s about them growing as a person and access to their thoughts is an efficient way to track that growth. It also helps to quickly setup the context for scenes, such as the one at the beginning when they go meet Carbon. Where the use of internal monologue goes awry is the ball sequence. Niki’s internal commentary becomes annoyingly redundant when it and other aspects of the comic effectively repeat known information. It’s like in a heist movie where there is a monologue montage that explains the “job,” except that monologue is running concurrently with the visuals, and other elements of Anderson’s script, simultaneously as they pull off the job. There’s no drama just repetition.

While there are other moments of contemporaneous telling and showing later on, this redundancy is most irksome about midway through as Niki tries to obtain young Walter Waverly’s fingerprints. Niki needs these prints to get through some security, which was setup pages earlier. The explanation about deus ex Weaver’s ability to copy fingerprints is a bit of a push. The desire to explain the ‘how’ of it all is understandable, but visually Jen Hickman’s emphasis on the handshake between Niki and Waverly ques the reader to intuit some sort of process is occurring. The following panel with the glasses HUD saying there needs to be more contact efficiently makes that point in the storyworld. Which makes the thought “I need some way to keep scanning …” in the next panel totally redundant information, especially because Hickman does a fine job giving Niki an inquisitive expression on how to keep a scan going.

The use of internal monologue in “Moth & Whisper” #2 becomes ineffectual because the thought is about the process of something, often with the physical manifestation making the page appear less appealing. The desire to explain makes a certain amount of sense in a cyberpunk setting, but at the same time without “Lazarus” style design interfaces just leaning into the collective consciousness understanding of the genre, computers, and trusting the reader to go with it would have been simpler. Otherwise it becomes what we have, Niki thinking what to do as they do it. The lettering that represents these process thoughts also visually clutters the page in a way that runs counter to the overall stealth element of the job – such as when Niki infiltrates the inner workings of the Waverly house. It’s effectively four panels with an equal number of word balloons, and the balloons make everything appear clunky. The internal monologue in “Moth & Whisper” #2 makes it read just a hair over written at times.

It isn’t like the writing this issue isn’t clever. When Walter Waverly discovers Niki mucking around with the family server one of the tells is calling him “Master Waverly” versus “Master Walter,” making for a nice payoff.

These moments of narrative dissonance aside, “Moth & Whisper” #2 is an overall good introduction to who is Niki is as a character. In the first issue, they were presented as this overall Cool™ kid pulling jobs and living up to the family legacy. The second issue drops some of that performative mystique. Niki’s presentation doesn’t lean into the previous issues style and presents them more as they are: an off the grid teenager looking for their parents and hanging out with very dangerous people. There is a slight awkwardness to how they talk with Carbon and other characters this issue. The use of the glasses HUD to show Carbon’s subtitled dialog also helps draw out the difference in cadence. Artistically Hickman does a good job of giving Niki these cartoonishly emotive but kind of sly expressions, when things go a little sideways that helps to sell the gap between their technical know how and on the ground experience.

As the issue progresses, Hickman drops backgrounds out of a good number of panels. The pastel color choices often correspond with the overall color of the room so it doesn’t look that out of place, there’s just a lack of depth at times. Dropping the background out of the dance sequence between Niki and Walter should make it feel static, since without a marker to signify depth within space there isn’t a way to track movement panel to panel. Instead of using the background to track everything,the E.M. nano chaff that is floating through the party serves as a marker. I could only see a couple of times were this chaff was shown in front of on the characters, but the shifting pattern design it makes from panel to panel gives everything just the right amount of dynamism.

There are a few speedbumps in this issue that made reading this mildly annoying, that annoyance felt magnified because of the overall quality and smart decision making the creative team chose. Anderson’s script pushed the overall plot, the search for Niki’s parents, forward while giving readers insight into who they are as a person. The introduction of Walter Waverly is a solid mirror to Niki as someone who is trying to prove their worth and independence to their parents. Jen Hickman’s art is expressive and ques readers to what is going on efficiently.

Final Verdict: 7.0 – Rough spots aside “Moth & Whisper” #2 is an all around good comic with a tight plot that feels like a satisfying episode.