With the previous issue, the creators almost had me, but the final issue of Storm of the Century once again leaves me mostly not caring about Officer Luck and Decoy. The story is too earnest, too telegraphed, and it seems like they're playing what should be a fairly whimsical property way too straight. In addition, the danger is never very well-defined, which takes away a lot of the dramatic tension that would be necessary to make it work in that vein. The artwork is still very nice and beautifully colored, and the story concepts intriguing, but I'm afraid that the book just didn't work for me on the whole.
I hate to harp on this, because I think I've mentioned it in almost every Penny-Farthing review, but this book is not the most accessible thing in the world, even to those who have been reading it. Understand, I read a fair number of comics each month, and keep track of a lot in my head, but that doesn't mean a little "What has gone before" blurb or some exposition in the comics is a bad thing. Any number of important elements, such as Alloy's motivation, Decoy's transformation, the relationship between the Kranch and Decoy's people, aren't really covered at all. Even having read the previous issues, some of the details had slipped by me, and it wasn't until I'd read the whole story that I began to remember little details that would have made it read more smoothly as I went along.
However, the larger problem is that I just wasn't really made to care. Luck seems like a nice guy, and we can all generally agree that flooding a major town is bad, but given how little we've seen of the populace, and how relatively little we've learned about Luck, I couldn't really work up the enthusiasm to care about whether or not they all drowned. They're fictional characters, so just the notion that they might be wiped out doesn't hold a lot of tension. I need to see what is being lost, and it wasn't shown. Instead, we get plenty of warfare between colorful energy creatures whose motivations seem to be an inbred evil, hardly the most compelling thing in the world.
Where the book is compelling, as always, is in the art department. Huddleston's style is somewhat cartoony, but it's plenty expressive, and Garcia's colors continue to impress. The ever-present rain effects give a sense of the stormy background, and Luck has a seemingly endless variety of confused and terrified expressions. I did wish for a bit more clarity on the dam sequence, so that we could see the level of danger the water posed, rather than just being told it was there, but in general the artwork was pretty strong.
Ultimately, Decoy seems like a fun premise that the creators just aren't having enough fun with. Murderous aliens trying to gain some unspecified form of ultimate power, drowning an entire town, police corruption, these are all topics that should be exciting, but they're done in such broad strokes that I don't find them all that believable or entertaining. And the idea of a cop paired with a shapechanging alien seems to promise at least a little bit of buddy comedy or exploration of friendship, but there's none to be found.
