Because of Hawaiian Dick and Battle Hymn, I have somewhat high expectations for a new B. Clay Moore book, as well as the expectation that it will be running late. The Expatriate fulfills the latter expectation (it was supposed to ship in February), but I have to admit that I wasn't as wowed by this first issue as I generally am by Moore's work. Moore and Latour succeed in making the antagonists interesting, dispassionate bastards who seek our lead character with an almost robot-like efficiency married to a sardonic, cynical sense of humor, but in giving the protagonist a mystery, they also keep him sketchy enough so as to avoid giving him a real personality. The Expatriate centers around a man on the run from the C.I.A., but he doesn't entirely know why he's running, and neither do we. If the premise is built on questions, they've gotta be something I'm dying to know or the characters have to be so compelling that I'm interested in where their arcs are going, and so far, The Expatriate hasn't quite gripped me in that way.
I can't quite put my finger on the tone of The Expatriate. The C.I.A. guys seem like they're in some sort of funny buddy comedy, Jack Dexter and Maria Lobo (the kinda goofy named protagonists of the piece) are in a Mexican soap opera and Luis and his goon buddy are clearly doing a page out of the Banana Republic production of The Godfather. I'll give Moore credit for the stew of genres and elements, but it doesn't really come together into something that has the tension you want in a "spy on the run" type book, and Jack Dexter is a little too hapless to really buy into as a protagonist at this point. There are some interesting characters introduced, but there's not enough story in this first issue to hook me.
Of course, my favorite characters in this issue are the ones we see the most of, the bad guys. The agents trying to chase Jack down have a world-weary, heartless approach to their jobs combined with the sick humor of cops or soldiers who have seen so much death and horror that they can't help but subside on a steady diet of black humor. The opening scene, in which the agents gun down a (presumably) innocent family by accident, shows their callous demeanor, but I have to admit that I liked them in the same way that I liked Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction. Clearly, in many ways, these are the bad guys, but they're so much more interesting than the good guys are.
Ostensibly, though, this is the story of an American expatriate on the run named Jack Dexter, who in this first issue has a Chaykin-esque run-in and instant connection with a Latin hottie named Maria Lobo. Both of these characters are interesting enough, but they don't have the quirky appeal of the C.I.A. agents or the strong determination you want out of a hero of the piece. Instead, they're just sort of tossed by the events of their lives, and I find that I don't particularly care for them or want to root for them yet, so much as I want to root for the more interesting guys to catch them so we can find out what's going on.
The Expatriate is another example of Moore bringing a previously unseen or underseen art talent to the industry, and while Latour's work doesn't blow me away like the work of Steven Griffin or Jeremy Haun, it's definitely distinctive and attractive. Reminiscent of a strange cross between the stylish noir of Mike Avon Oeming and the exaggerated, recognizable faces of Charlie Adlard, Latour's work is sometimes a little too drenched in shadow and swatches of color, but the stylistic effect overall is definitely a good one. The strange, almost other-worldly lighting of the scenes highlights the paranoid tone of the book, and Latour is good at portraying both the indifferent cruelty of the C.I.A. agents and the burning anger of Luis.
With it's mystery premise, The Expatriate really needed characters that leaped off the page and a tense, memorable tone that kept the reader glued to the page, and it doesn't really have that. It's an intriguing read, with some fun moments and effective artwork, but it hasn't gotten its hooks into me at all, and that's a bad thing for a first issue from an untested property. 6/10
