This story isn't about the trauma of developing super-powers. It isn't about the pressures of being a cop living in a world full of magically powered villains. It isn't about a crazy ex-boyfriend with a knife or anything like that. Sure, the plot involves those elements, but what the story is about is the ugly side of human nature. It's about what each of us is capable of if we're pushed hard enough. It's about the fact that everyone around us has his or her secrets. Each of us has done things we never tell anyone about. And despite the intensity of homicide detective Deena Pilgrim's secrets, it's remarkably easy to relate to this broken individual as she desperately tries to hold herself together.
Deena Pilgrim's breakup with her boyfriend isn't going well. He's clingy at a time when she wants to be left alone, afraid the world will find out she has developed electricity powers. The ex is rather persistent, though, and Deena realizes just how much when he plunges a knife into her back when she arrives home from work. Rage takes over Deena's entire being, and what happens next... well, it's not pretty.
I think what struck me most about the art in this issue is how much artist Michael Avon Oeming trusts in colorist Peter Pantazis's ability to make his initial vision come to life. Oeming's thick linework doesn't really define the characters here; it's the color that dominates each scene. A light electric blue combined with white slices through the darkness of Deena's apartment. An intense, burning orange glow envelops a room as Deena goes about her "work" in the middle of the issue. Once again, the simplicity of Oeming's style does't get in the way of conveying the maturity and dark emotions of the story.
We like to think that crimes are comitted solely by people who have chosen to live their lives on the wrong side of society. Drug addicts, thieves, repeated perpetrators of physical abuse... regular folks tend not to connect with them, to understand them. We all committ little crimes here and there through our lives, but the big stuff... that's something the other, more unfortunate half does. Bendis takes into the heart of a good person who ends up doing a bad thing. Violence and criminal behavior can not only creep into our lives, but into our hearts and minds as well.
The main point isn't about violence or crime, though. It's about hitting rock bottom, about one's life -- professional and personal -- completely falling apart through no fault of one's own. Our lives are fragile things, and Bendis explores one woman's tragedy. She feels as though her life is defined by betrayal. Her boyfriend turns on her, and her body, by transforming into that which she hunts in her job, has betrayed her. And now she realizes she's betrayed everything she believes in as a cop. We've all felt betrayed by others and by ourselves, and it's surprisingly easy to relate to what Deena's feeling. 9/10
