Wow, did this one surprise me. I've been generally lukewarm on the Call of Duty mini-series, and I haven't much enjoyed any of Zezelj's artwork, so I expected this one to leave me pretty cold. Instead, this street-level tale of paramedics, leavened with just the right amount of supernatural elements, is the best of The Call mini-series thus far, with a couple of very interesting lead characters, a good look at the day-to-day life of people in this job, and fantastic elements that add to rather than take away from the story.
What I know of EMS duty comes from watching television or reading the occasional news article or book, but the depiction in this issue felt pretty real. The banter between Jennifer and her partner and the dark humor that they share with one another and the cops felt right, and was pretty entertaining as well. I also really enjoyed the interaction between the characters and the other branches of service, whether it was the dialogue with the cops at the site or the joking with the other paramedic back at the home base.
The scene in the apartment, at the scene of the crime, was probably the strongest part of the issue. The difficulties of the job, including a trauma victim on the roof or an innocent victim caught in the crossfire, really came through in this sequence, and little details like the pump or the concern about AIDS helped to bring the reader into the story and the world that these paramedics live in. And although I've found the supernatural elements distracting in most of The Call series so far, the spooky little girl appearing in the middle of the job they were doing was effective and very creepy.
A lot of the credit on that must go to Danijel Zezelj and the colorists of Avalon Studios. Zezelj's characters have often looked too indistinct to me, but he gives Jennifer and her partner very distinctive looks, and the sense of urban blight fits his style very well. In addition, Avalon colors the work a little differently, almost giving some of the work a color halo, and the result is a somewhat washed out, surreal quality that fits the supernatural aspects of the story as much as the urban reality aspects.
Austen and Zezelj have found a great balance in The Wagon, telling a realistic story of EMS workers alongside a spooky and foreboding tale of disaster with supernatural elements. There are plenty of scenes with great punch, as well as some sympathetic and fascinating characters.
