Transmetropolian is the pinnacle of Warren Ellis's writing as far as I'm concerned, but this foray into homicide-cop drama is riveting. If future issues are as engrossing as this one, it may run a close second to Transmet on the Ellis quality meter. The writer maintains an excellent balance between the edgier, more intense and extreme sort of elements we expect from him and a more conventional, accessible tone. This issue reads like the first half of an episode of Law & Order if Ellis were to pen one. Strong characterization, horror that's all the more effective because of the real possibility it represents and clever plotting makes for a fascinating crime story that eclipses all others in the industry. Fell may just be the book that finally wins ovr a largr audience to Ellis's non-super-hero work.
A body is found in Snowton -- that of a young woman whose belly has been sliced open and the growing fetus within removed. But what really horrifies Det. Richard Fell is that in the new precinct to which he's been assigned, it's possible this has happened repeatedly and none of the cases were reported as homicides. Fell initially thinks the killer might be some kind of nut who targets expectant mothers who are far from kind to their future children (for example, by smoking), but a friendly conversation soon leads him down another path... one leading back in time and across the ocean to Cambodia.
Templesmith's scratchy style is remarkably successful at establishing a grounded, realistic and believable tone, but at the same time, the eerie greens and yellows he employs also imbue the story with an eerie, edgier look. I love how he bathes the morgue scene in an unnatural, glowing green. Furthermore, his design for the Nixon Nun puts me in mind of the twisted sensibilities one finds in Frank Miller's work. My one qualm with the art is that Mayko, the bartender who befriended and branded the title character, is rendered inconsistently. At times, she appears to be attractive, and at others, a twisted, menacing force.
I think what's most interesting about this murder plot is that the explanation is historically enlightening. Thanks to my involvement in a language immersion program, my junior high and high school history courses were limited in scope, and my appreciation of 20th century history is actually quite limited. Ellis delves beyond superficial examinations of Cambodian history and the Khmer Rouge, and he exposes just one of the innumberable atrocities that were part and parcel of that piece of the world's past.
What's even more fascinating is that Ellis -- who's no stranger to the notion of horror comics -- manages to create a sense of horror here by exploring reality. Though the art maintains a tense, supernatural atmosphere, what's horrifying about the crime is that it really happened, just in a radically different place and time. Ellis makes the darkly quirky Snowton seem more real by extension, and it draws one further into Fell's world, eager to see the next encounters, to learn of the next horrors. 10/10
