Texarkana reads kind of like what you might get if you crossed the authoritarian law-enforcement style of Judge Dredd with the flavor of the southwest and a conspiracy/political storytelling bent. The story goes off in some strange directions, with the characters in Neighly's script a little too comfortable with their authoritarian jobs for my taste, but it's an interesting mixture of action, suspense and some really entertaining character bits. Hadiwidjaja's work is a strangely cartoony, heavily manga-influenced style that doesn't always work for me, but when it does, it's really good, and for the most part, these creators fit together pretty well.
Neighly opens his tale with a newspaper clipping giving the feeling of Texarkana, the southwestern city-state that is one of the major factions in this futuristic world. He continues this first scene by giving us a feel for the authoritarian nature of society, which has incorporated the notion of judge, jury and executioner into street law enforcement. It's not a wholly new concept, but Neighly portrays it in an interesting way, with one of the members of the squad actually being the defense attorney, showing that it's not a sort of organized vigilantism but instead a bastardization of the U.S. justice system into a more streamlined and unjust form.
Unfortunately, while this concept is one I really like, it's just a background element for the story, and I was really hoping to see a little more of the moral problems of this system as it is supposed to work explored, by characters who have some problems on a moral level, especially the defense attorney, who seems like little more than an oft-ignored formality in this system. Instead, Neighly's story starts from this point and goes off into an exploration of the system being manipulated for evil purposes, which is definitely interesting but which kind of leaves the reader having to accept that these characters don't see much problem with their current methods of law enforcement. Realistic, but a little bit of a hitch in terms of accepting them as heroic.
However, the upside is that as the story goes on, the heroes do develop some traits that make it easier to accept them as heroes. The newbie, though he expresses little regret about how the system is supposed to work, does start to represent the conscience of the group as he wonders about the justness of their cause, and I find it fascinating that he's the one questioning things and yet the guy who follows orders into an actual crime at the same time. Then there's Barry Masters, prosecuting attorney, whose attire and attitude sets him aside as the cowboy of the bunch, and I thought he was an exceptional character, one who might not always be right but who tries to do the right thing and who also serves as something of a mentor for the new character introduced to this team. I also enjoyed Adjudicator Helen Fairbrass, who is very much the comedy relief in many ways, but with a sinister edge revealed later on in the series that makes her much more than just a comedic figure.
In tone, Texarkana veers a bit for me, sometimes aiming for slapstick comedy or big action, but dealing with fairly thorny subjects like law and justice. The comedy elements sometimes get a little too goofy (really, a character named Ped Xing, who is a major plot element?), and it's a little bit too much on the "boing! zoom!" scale of comedy to be called dark humor, which is what would fit better for the generally serious tone of the tale. However, Neighly and Hadiwidjaja really do some nice work on the action sequences, especially the ones featuring a chase in the latter half of the book, and the unfolding of what's really going on is a nice bit of conspiracy storytelling, with some twists that I didn't see coming.
One thing that strikes me about Texarkana is that it's such a blend of elements, but one of the things it does best is create a fictional future world. Hadiwidjaja's designs for New Asia are very effective, and though we don't see a lot of Texarkana itself, we do get a pretty good glimpse of that society as well. Neighly has created a world that I'm very interested in learning more about, but this story doesn't really delve into the aspects that I find the most fascinating, instead using them as more of a backdrop to a different tale. Texarkana takes a while to get going, but once we get into the last chapter or two and things are really moving, it's a rip-roaring little story, and the ambiguous ending leads me to believe there will be plenty to explore in the upcoming ongoing series.
