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ALIAS #7
(Best of the Week!)
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Marvel Comics/MAX Comics imprint
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artists:
Michael Gaydos & Bill Sienkiewicz
Colors: Matt Hollingsworth
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Stuart Moore
Price: $2.99 US/$4.75 CAN |
Alias is a book that's aimed squarely at the long-time fan, but it takes an approach that I would think any fan of comics would enjoy. Particularly fans who might not be appreciative of super-heroes as a whole, and might enjoy seeing some of the conventions of the genre tweaked a bit, often for very funny purposes. Alias is a street-level book, not unlike Jinx or Goldfish, plopped right smack down in the middle of the
Marvel Universe. It shouldn't work, it should be one of those books that seems
designed to piss off any potential audience in one way or the other given its
contradictory elements, but instead, it remains one of Bendis's strongest
current books.
In our introduction to
Jessica Jones in the first arc, we saw her at her worst: down on her luck, stuck
in the middle of powerful enemies, suffering from real self-esteem problems...
this arc puts her in a little bit better light. Though she's still stuck dealing
with stuff that, as a super-hero, she wouldn't even have to touch, the goodness
in her heart and the skill she brings to her job are quite evident in her
interactions with others.
The whole plot that drives
this story has potential to be really confusing, if it weren't so damn
entertaining. I know that Rick Jones isn't married to the woman who hires
Jessica, and I know that he's not the guy she's tracking. What I don't know is
who the guy she finds is, or what he's up to. But I know that I'm really curious
to find out, and the manic, paranoid reaction he has to Jessica at the end comes
off as hilariously funny, sort of mocking the weird life that Rick Jones has
had.
While Bendis has set this in the world where a teenager befriends a living legend and an irradiated monster, what makes Alias work is its sense of realism.
Whether it's little details, like Jessica having a good think while she sits on
the toilet (a disturbing visual, but one that definitely grounds the book in the
real), or larger ones, like the text pieces of Rick's book, reading like a Tom
Wolfe novel about super-heroes more than a four-color punch-up, I feel like the
world I'm looking at is as real as the one outside my door. People curse, people
stutter, and little details like remaindered books and small clubs can make all
the difference in a case. The conversation between Jessica and her mother, aside
from being delightfully funny, is a great illustration of the sort of realism
I'm talking about as well.
Gaydos's work on the book is
as skillful as I've come to expect as well. Though I could wish for a little
more subtlety of expression, his ability to portray the world so realistically
and to tell the story through visuals is as strong as any other artist out
there. His visual style, rendering the world with all of its blemishes, reminds
me of the work of David Lapham or of Bendis's artwork. Having "book
illustrations" by Bill Sienkiewicz was just icing on the cake.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
