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QUEEN & COUNTRY #25
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Oni Press
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artists: Steve Rolston & Mike Norton
Letters: John Dranski
Editor: James Lucas Jones
Price: $5.99 US/$8.99 CAN |
You know, I always kind of assumed that Tara Chace came out of the womb with a sniper rifle and a bottle of booze for after she used it. Well, maybe not, but we've been given no indication of her past life, other than a friendship with debutante Rachel, and it didn't really seem germane to the book anyway, so it didn't seem lacking. For the 25th issue, though, Rucka has chosen to focus in on Tara's past, not by way of a flashback but by way of introducing us to one of her family members and showing us what she does on holiday, and while it's light on the office politics or the bang-bang run-run stuff, it's full of the same fascinating character interaction and somewhat bitter, morose personality that has defined Tara since day one. On top of Tara's past making a return, the book also features Steve Rolston, first artist on Queen & Country, bringing his cartoony (I kid, I kid!) style back, and this time out I knew to appreciate it the first time around. This is certainly not indicative of the general plots of Queen & Country, but the style and tone is there, and it makes a nice reflective issue for current readers and maybe even a jumping-on point for new ones, although those folks are really better off with the first trade instead.
One of the fascinating things about Queen & Country is that Tara Chace is not James Bond. She doesn't get the guy, drink the martinis and go home to a fabulous hot tub and swanky lifestyle. Her job wears on her, and in fact her home life is the kind that would make most of us consider putting a bullet in our own brain. Rucka has painted Chace since the beginning as someone just on the edge of burnout, and whenever we see her "out of uniform," so to speak, she seems weary and depressed. It was fascinating to see how this enters into her private life, and to see where some of that came from with a home life that is just as fucked up as her current occupation. Chace's mother is a fascinating character, very different from her daughter, but absolutely the kind of mother who could have produced someone like Tara, someone who really doesn't want to give herself any happiness because she's afraid she'd wind up giving up all responsibility.
Actually, that's sort of the theme of this issue. Chace is on vacation, but even on vacation, she can't allow herself to relax and have fun. She has a glimpse at the life she could have lived, both through her mother and her friend Rae, and it's clear that it just isn't the life for her. Tara wouldn't know what to do with a life of mindless hedonism, and while she does get to have a bit of fun, her role here seems to be more of a mother hen, the responsible adult in the midst of children, which makes pretty good reinforcement for the big change in her role revealed at the end of the issue.
I am a mere reviewer, and I could never aspire to write comics anywhere near as good as those of guys like, say, Alan Moore or Greg Rucka. However, I do know one thing that these two gentlemen apparently don't, and this is that if much of the important dialogue in my issue were in a foreign language that most of my readers don't speak, I would translate it! Rucka pulled this trick before, with untranslated French during the sex scenes in "Operation: Blackwall," and I thought it was good, because it allowed him to get across the general sentiments of the dialogue and focus in on what was going on. Here, though, we get some important character stuff, and the nuances are completely lost. I get the generalities of the hostility between Tara and her mother, or the obvious threat directed at Michel by Tara, but I can't help but think it would have been much stronger had I been able to understand the words. There will no doubt be translations of the German and French dialogue in this issue up on the Internet within days if not hours, but that's hardly the point. The point is, you shouldn't have to go to the Internet to understand the comic, and these aren't just a few choice sentences, but pretty hefty chunks of the book. Chalk it up to an artistic choice that I just plain don't agree with, and one of the only flaws in an otherwise excellent issue, in my opinion.
When Steve Rolston was first doing Queen & Country, I complained that his work was too cartoony, and didn't really seem to fit the book. Quite honestly, his still isn't the definitive run on the book for me (that honor would go to either Jason Alexander or Mike Hawthorne), but I've come to absolutely love his artwork, and it was a treat seeing it again here, whether it was the pages with Mike Norton's inks or the pages where Rolston inked himself. Especially in an issue where much of the dialogue is essentially nonsense to me (see rant above), his perfect skill with expressions is abolutely essential, and I love the designs he does for the various characters, very normal and believable but still distinctive, a difficult balancing act for any artist to pull off.
After 25 issues, I'm still completely in love with Queen & Country, and regard it as Greg Rucka's best work in comics, with the possible exception of his other Oni series, Whiteout. This issue is a breather for the characters, but it comes with a pretty important shift for the lead character in the framing device, and I can't wait to see where the book goes for the next 25 issues and beyond.
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