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QUEEN & COUNTRY #7
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Oni Press
Writer: Greg Rucka
Pencils: Brian Hurtt
Inks: Christine Norrie
Letters: Sean Konot
Editors: Jamie S. Rich & James Lucas Jones
Price: $2.95 US/$4.50 CAN |
Some of my favorite television shows right now are espionage-based shows, like Alias and 24. However, while those shows rely more on action and cinematic espionage, Queen & Country is providing much the same thing with more realistic tension and suspense. There's not a single shot fired this issue, but the fear of death is very prevalent, and the psychological stakes for Tara Chace are pretty high as well. Rucka and his artists are turning in a fine comic with Queen & Country, and the second arc
was as exciting and enjoyable as the first.
There's been a dual story
structure in this arc from the beginning, and Rucka does a nice job of bringing
it all together at the end. While the field op had little to do with Tara, her
work at home helps to bring the case to a close. This served more than one
purpose as well, giving a solid conclusion to the psychological difficulties
she's suffering after the harrowing first arc as well as once again establishing
for the reader just how capable Tara Chace is when it comes to investigation.
However, much as I enjoy Tara
Chace and the story involving her fragile mental state, what really got me this
issue were the three agents in the middle of Taliban territory. It is pointed
out several times that they could already be dead, effectively, and the Taliban
are just waiting for the right time. Operating under that kind of pressure is
hard to imagine for any of us, but just as he brings the job of bodyguard home
in his Atticus Kodiak novels, Rucka makes it easy to relate to the tension and
fear that one must deal with while also focusing on the job.
From the start, this book has
taken an artistic approach that surprised me, one that is less based on a
realist style and more on an iconic, almost cartoony style. Hurtt & Norrie
took the artwork in a direction that was more detailed, especially in regards to
the backgrounds of the story, but they kept the positive aspects that Steve
Rolston brought with his style, namely a strong emphasis on facial detail and
small movements that spoke volumes. There were a couple of storytelling
glitches, as the complicated bluff and distraction at the end almost distracted
me as a reader as much as it distracted the Taliban guard, but after a couple of
re-readings, the story was clear.
The conclusion of this issue came a little sooner than I expected, leaving me looking for a last page or something that gives more of a neat ending, until I realized that Rucka was making a point, one that is important to Queen & Country. Though the stories are told in discrete arcs, the missions don't
end when the objectives are cleared. They take a toll on the agents, and really
they are given little time before they roll on to the next crisis. It's
difficult to convey a balance of relatively monotonous, routine office work and
exciting but dangerous field work that comes with a job like espionage, but
Rucka has captured that feeling perfectly.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
