It's hard for me to get really excited about Casefiles: Sam & Twitch because of circumstances that have nothing to do with the contents of the book. Little things like looking at all the toy ads in the back and realizing where the McFarlane Studios priorities lie, looking at McFarlane's record for timely product and finishing out a series and of course how he cut the last Sam & Twitch (and its writer) off at the knees over some petty crap. Which is a shame, because Casefiles: Sam & Twitch is as good as any issue that Bendis and Maleev ever did of this book, and almost as good as a lot of their terrific Daredevil run. Andreyko involves Sam and Twitch only tangentially at first, instead setting up a story revolving around a professor of pop culture and a senator running for President and facing a scandal. Paul Lee's artwork has always looked terrific in color, but in black and white it's even better, more than a little reminiscent of Maleev's work, and so far this looks like a modern crime saga with noir-tinged atmosphere.
I'll be honest, I've never had that much fondness for Sam or Twitch as characters. Good writers can make anyone entertaining, but even someone like Bendis had an uphill battle where these two cliched detectives were concerned. Fortunately, Andreyko's story doesn't really focus on these characters at the outset. Instead, he spends the story building up a thoroughly dysfunctional (and thoroughly fascinating) family with plenty of secrets and skeevy behavior, and then showing us a happy couple that seems to have some kind of ties to this dysfunctional family, landing them in terrible danger. Andreyko reveals just about everything about what's going on here by implication, but doesn't outright spell out the mysteries, and the result is that I feel like I've guessed what's coming up, but I can't wait to see how it comes out.
Mind you, the book is called "Sam & Twitch," so they've got to figure in the book, and they've got to be interesting. Andreyko manages both in this issue, linking slob Sam to one of the players in this little drama with a slightly coincidental but believable past connection in a way that also provides a fun comedic moment between the partners. In addition, in an improvement over the first Case Files story, Andreyko has cut this one loose of any sort of continuity, meaning that even if you've never read a Sam and Twitch comic before in your life, you can get into this one and read it as a self-contained crime story.
The best thing that McFarlane Productions could do with Sam and Twitch is to emulate what Bendis and Maleev did with the book, and that seems to be what this second arc of Case Files is all about. Andreyko's dialogue doesn't have quite the same easy snap that Bendis's does, but the style is there, and he's set up a plot that's just as intriguing as any that Bendis came up with. Then there's the artwork, by Paul Lee, which I would swear is done by Alex Maleev if I didn't know better. The expressive, realistic faces and photo-referenced backgrounds gives the book a sense of reality that works perfectly for Andreyko's gritty story, and brings the characters to life very effectively. I'd be a little happier if the lettering and production had been stronger, as text sometimes disappears into the white or black space of the art and becomes very difficult to read, but the art itself is terrific.
Like I said, I have zero affection for these characters, and zero affection for this imprint of the publisher, and that makes it hard to really get into the book. And yet... this is a really strong first issue. Interesting characters, exceptional plotting, gorgeous artwork, it all results in a package that draws the reader in and makes you want to know what happens next.
