In my day job as a courts/crime reporter, I see a lot of cases of prescription drug addiction. I see malnutrition. I see confusion. I see loss. But more than anything else in those cases, I see desperation. Brian Wood taps into that experience and really brings it to life in this debut issue. It's clear that Local is going to be like a previous Wood project, Demo, in that each issue will focus on different characters in different circumstances. I would imagine that like Demo, the various issues of Local will instead be linked thematically. Wood offers strong characterization and plotting in this self-contained story, and the series is shaping up to be as strong and compelling as its predecessor.
A young woman walks into a Portland, Oregon, pharmacy with a forged prescription for a drug from the morphine family. The drugs aren't for her, but her strung-out boyfriend who hatched the plan. The young woman provides her health card and the forged script and is promptly caught in an illegal act. The scenario doesn't end well... time and time again, as the young woman continues to replay events, tweaking them each time to achieve a different result. But even her abilities can't turn a bad situation into a good one.
Kelly's slightly twisted but realistic style suits the tone of the story. He captures the characters' emotions quite clearly, and that's no small feat when it comes to the protagonist's varied and subtly depicted emotional state. Kelly's work reminds me of the style of Paul (100%) Pope. He comes to this project with a DC/Vertigo pedigree, but he demonstrates he can handle an urban, gritty and grounded story just as easily as more fantastic and eerie ones. The artist conveys the tension in the story quite well, and I love how the art explodes when repeated climaxes are reached.
One could interpret the repetition of events as the main character playing possible scenarios through her mind before finally taking action, but given that Demo was a series about special people in mundane or unfortunate circumstances, I expect the same holds true here. Wisely, Wood doesn't play up the superhuman/supernatural elements in the story, but instead focuses on the reality of an ugly situation from different perspectives. The boyfriend's extreme behavior and inability to think clearly rings true, and the heroine's sense of being trapped by her bad decisions has a genuine feel to it as well.
This issue isn't just a strong character study but tells a compelling story as well. The conflict seems to be how the main character will ultimately find a way to score for her boyfriend, but literally and thematically, she doesn't achieve success until she changes what it is she wants. Finally, she wins and emerges from a Groundhog Day-like hell by changing her goal rather than her methodology. The message is simple and clear: the path to happiness lies in making a difficult choice rather than remaining in a difficult circumstance. 10/10
