After greatly enjoying the first two Human Target stories by Milligan, I was a bit let down by the ongoing series, at least in its issue form. Oh, it was good, but it didn't really come together for me. Reading them all in one chunk, in this trade paperback format, I like them better, and definitely don't have the problems of accessibility that I thought I saw in the single issues. Milligan's stories here are brief, one and two-parters, but they also come together to tell one big story arc that reforms Christopher Chance for future tales. Human Target is something I'd thought of as more of an action piece, but Pulido's storytelling strengths don't lie in the action, and it seems that Milligan's tastes don't lie there either, as Strike Zones is much more of a psychological tale with some action, rather than the other way around.
The overall story of Strike Zones is of Christopher Chance suffering from a pretty serious shattering of psyche and then putting himself together through a couple of later cases. When read altogether, the stories read like a couple good episodes of a new TV series, with the first tale serving as a pilot and the second two stories each serving as a different episode. Not one of them benefitted from being split into a two-parter, and so they read much smoother and stronger in this trade paperback format. Mind you, the first issue still suffers somewhat from being an epilogue of sorts to the last Human Target graphic novel as much as it is a setup for the new series, but reading it as part of these stories instead of a standalone, I found it much easier to get into the story.
There are some truly weird parallels to be found in the stories when they are viewed in this context. Each of the stories features Chance impersonating someone whose identity problems mirror his own, for example. The first story is an exception, in that all of the personality problems belong to Chance (in a fairly clever, if not perfectly clear revelation), but the other two tales feature this pattern. Chance's self-loathing and self-doubt reflect in interesting ways off of a disgraced accountant or a washed-up ballplayer. Those aren't quite so odd, however, since Milligan has always written this character as a vehicle for questions of identity. What's odd is that in every single story, the wife of the lead character finds herself in pretty gruesome danger of being tortured, raped and murdered, and though only one wife doesn't escape that fate, it does feel a little creepy that this is a common theme in the stories.
Another thing that struck me in reading these stories together is how intricate they are, and how they play well off of one another. You can definitely read "The Unshredded Man" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" separately, but taken together, they show Chance slowly becoming himself again, becoming a gun for hire instead of just a guy who has lost all reason for living. In addition, the bad guys behind each plot could easily have been stereotypes, the corrupt mob guys in sports betting or the evil embezzling corporate types, but Milligan makes them more interesting than that. They're willfully evil, but we see plenty of scenes of them against their own pressures, and thinking that they're just doing what anyone else would do. These guys aren't sympathetic, but they're human. And the same can be said for the flawed lives that Chance inhabits, or for Chance himself.
On the art side of thing, Javier Pulido is solid, but unfortunately not much more. To be fair, I think this has more to do with suitability to the subject matter than any lack of talent, because Pulido does some impressive stuff here, including a nicely-rendered version of New York and a lot of characters with real personality in their designs. However, despite some strong storytelling and exceptional craftsmanship, the whole thing just feels a little stiff, a little emotionally distant. And while this seems an ideal match for the detached Christopher Chance, in fact a little more contrast, and more visceral action, works better for the character. Pulido is a great artist, and his art here is definitely good, but it just doesn't feel like the right mix.
Which brings me to my weirdest attitude about Human Target: Strike Zones: It's worth buying because of what comes next. I've been reading the Human Target series now that Cliff Chiang has taken over on art and Milligan has tackled stories of abusive priests and fallen activists which are actually more interesting than any of the stories in this volume. However, these stories set the mood and set up the character for those tales, and they're interesting reading on their own, even if they don't represent how good the series is going to get.
