Warren Ellis is well read, and that leads to good reading for his audience.
Ellis provides yet another mesmerizing and intense script that transforms an impossibly corrupt urban setting into something the reader can believe and picture thanks to the wholly genuine tone of the ideas the characters explore. The writer also lets us know these articulate characters are in a scary place, but he allows artist Ben Templesmith's exaggerated style and supernaturally tinged colors drive that message home. This issue's cover proclaims that Fell is nominated for five Eisner Awards this year, and the material within proves those nods are well deserved.
Det. Richard Fell meets the Snowton precinct's "half" investigator, an old-timer amputee cop with a penchant for getting the job done. He and his partner have arrested a prime murder suspect, but the interrogation isn't going so well. Fell asks to take a shot at the perp, and his keen eye for human behavior tells him when the suspect is lying, why he kills and what it'll take to get a confession. What Fell's perceptiveness doesn't let him know, though, is the fact that the guy has a gun.
Templesmith portrays the people in Snowton -- good and evil alike -- as ghouls and spectres. There's a clear intent to infuse the city a supernatural, foreboding energy even though the plot itself doesn't include such otherworldly elements. The message is clear: such depravity and corruption are as unnatural as spirits, monsters and spells... or at least they should be. The colors really drive home that feeling even moreso than the exaggerated linework. I love how the colors remain muted throughout the book until a bright splash of red at the end of the book reminds the reader of the messy humanity at the core of the story.
In order for this story to work, the reader has to accept that it's possible that a murder suspect could be escorted to an interrogation room without having been searched properly. Fortunately, Ellis has already sown the seeds to to eliminate the bitterness of that particular pill. This is Snowton. Police are corrupt, lazy and indifferent. That makes this unlikely scenario surprisingly easy to accept. Ellis also introduces the notion of the ludicrous with a hilarious opening scene in which a receptionist at the police precinct goes (understandably) off the deep end.
I've heard people praising DC's revived Jonah Hex series for offering self-contained stories, and the same can be said of Brian Wood's Local series from Oni Press. Ellis's Fell falls into good company, it would seem. But what draws me to this story -- and this series -- isn't just the concise nature of the storytelling, the strength of the characters and morbid playfulness of the script. I have to say this issue's greatest strength -- and that of the title character -- is the intelligent examination of the human psyche. Det. Fell deconstructs his suspect perfectly. Though an intense scene, there's no doubt as to his control of the situation. He's just smarter than his opponent. Violence is defeated through intelligence in this book, and that sets it apart. 10/10
