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“Olivia Twist” #2

By | October 26th, 2018
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Riffing on well known source material can be a great way to jump start a book and hook in the reader. It can also be convoluted and unnecessarily contrived. “Olivia Twist” #2 buries its good ideas in a pile of well worn tropes. (Warning: contains minor spoilers.)

Cover by Vanesa Del Rey
Written by Darin Strauss and Adam Dalva
Illustrated by Emma Vieceli
Colored by Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Sal Cipriano

The Esthers send Olivia on a heist into the Vertical City – a mile-high tower, the last refuge for wealthy Americans who have lost their country. But there’s incredible danger waiting for her on all sides: the mysterious killer from her nightmares, machine-augmented men, the most powerful C.E.O. in the world. And there is also, as it turns out, an even greater danger for Olivia: a love triangle.

The cover of “Olivia Twist” #2 is pretty dope. Olivia and The Esthers (the female gang of thieves who’ve taken Olivia under their wing) leap from one slate roof to another, dressed in distinctive, cosplay-ready Steampunk outfits. With a simple, painterly style that unambiguously and unapologetically references Charles Dickens’ original source material, cover artist Vanesa Del Rey cleanly captures the near future + Victorian England mashup the book tries to evoke. It’s a uncomplicated, striking image that fires the imagination and fills it with possibility. Inside the book, however, the basic promise of the front cover – rough and tumble action in the seamy underbelly of post-technological London – feels largely unfulfilled.

“Olivia Twist” #2 dives right into the action, picking up exactly where the first book left off. In the opening pages, we see Dodger return to the workhouse to rescue Pip, whom Olivia was forced to leave behind when she made her own escape. Almost immediately, some of the book’s pesky flaws begin to appear.

As a four-part miniseries, things have to happen fast, no doubt about it. At the same time, action that remains ungrounded in character motivation feels arbitrary and unengaging. Such is the case with the apparent need to retrieve young Pip. The bond between Olivia and the hapless child was never well established in the first place. Why Dodger feels the need to do this favor for Olivia and free the child is event less apparent. Eventually, Fagin and the others use the threat of taking Pip back where he came from to force Olivia to join their gang – “Either you have what it takes, or your boy is going back to the workhouse” – but it all feels pretty arbitrary and convoluted. There has to be an easier way.

Conversely, when Olivia and the Esthers go in search of pockets to pick, they simply waltz right into Vertical City, the swankiest, wealthiest, most technologically advanced high rise in town. Somehow, despite a massive wealth gap powered by destitute orphans who are literally imprisoned in the factories where they work, there are no security guards manning the front desk of the city’s foremost “Shop • Live • Belong” multi-use building. Apparently, street urchins are free to come and go as they please as long as they’re stylish enough.

Don’t get me wrong, I can suspend my disbelief as well as anyone else, but when one of the book’s core themes is the massive gulf between those who have wealth and power and those who don’t, it feels like the ruling elite should probably be more active in walling themselves off from the riff raff.

Visually, artist Emma Vieceli does a decent job of balancing Steam- and Cyber-Punk elements, blending the two vernaculars with relative harmony. That said, the look tends to be a bit safe and not particularly distinctive – a rehash of what’s come before it. The only thing that’s missing is a classic Ridley Scott downpour, backlit by silver streetlight in the perpetual twilit gloom…. Oh, wait. There it is! Right when the Trads arrive to spontaneously battle the Esthers in a random street fight because – well, that’s what they do.

There is a clever story in here somewhere, but too often it falls flat. Maybe it’s trying too hard; maybe not hard enough. The character designs, for example, are a definite highlight. Why it took so long to reveal the character lineup in a two-page spread, however, is simply baffling. In fact, they were all mentioned by name during their first random street fight with the Trads in the debut issue. To formally reveal them again, one third of the way into the second book, can’t help but feel like filler. Revealing authentic character traits and roles within the group organically throughout the series would have been much better. Instead, it just feels forced.

Ultimately, there’s just enough intrigue to keep the reader engaged, despite some heavy reliance on pretty well worn tropes. Lee Loughridge’s colors are appropriately desaturated and dingy, punctuated nicely by the garish reds of Fagin’s lair. There are also some interesting moments created by Vieceli’s paneling. That said, the pacing is uneven and the dialogue too often clunky. In many ways this feels like a bigger concept crammed into a 4 issue series. It probably comes down to this: writers Darin Strauss and Adam Dalva simply need more time and space to explore their core idea. Instead, they’ve boxed themselves in.

Final Verdict: 6.5 At the halfway point of the series, “Olivia Twist” #2 feels rushed and too full of clichés.


John Schaidler

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