by Randy Lander

THE ESTABLISHMENT #2 "Danger Man" Highly Recommended (9/10) DC Comics/Wildstorm Productions Writer: Ian Edginton Artist: Charlie Adlard Colors: Wildstorm FX Letters: GH Editor: Jeff Mariotte Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN There's a bit of The Authority in this issue of The Establishment, but it's a pleasant reminder rather than a tired rip-off. For the most part, this is a bloody story of Daemonites over-running a small British town and a former gangster standing up to them. Which is to say that it's old-fashioned violence and mayhem, all the while serving up a few mysteries about what the Daemonites are after, who the Establishment are and what exactly is going on with Charlie Arrows. The mystery is balanced out by the familiarity of an epic battle and a sympathetic protagonist in Arrows. All in all, I thought the second issue was better than the first, and if DC doesn't muck it up with over-sensitivity and scheduling snafus, they might have something that can replace The Authority in the hearts and minds of some fans. A big part of what makes this book work for me, quite honestly, is Charlie Adlard. He gets better with every project, and The Establishment seems designed to show him off. The carnage and mayhem of the Daemonite raid on Hobb's Bay comes to vivid life, with no punches pulled, in Adlard's hands. He does probably the scariest version of Daemonites I've ever seen. And the brief gunfight between Arrows and the Daemonite mercenaries is a beauty, cinematic and well-choreographed. Adlard also does some terrific work on character designs (I have a sketch of Mister Pharmacist already, and I love his visual) and on the more exotic moments such as the attack on the Daemonite jamming device or the first glimpse we get of their ship. However, that isn't to sell Edginton's contributions to the book short at all. The callous behavior of the Daemonite leader and Frost is chilling, and Arrows's weary and angry speech patterns really help to bring his character to life. Edginton is maintaining a tone somewhere between 70s crime, 21st century super-heroics and modern horror and doing it quite well. While The Establishment doesn't suffer from the inaccessible confusion of The Monarchy, it does have some of the same mystery that many readers of that "spin-off" series seemed to enjoy. Arrows clearly has a power of some sort, given the moment he shares with Rose in her hotel, and we still have very little information on who the Establishment actually are. However, with Arrows serving as an outsider of sorts, he'll make the ideal narrator, and he's an enjoyable enough character that we don't need to know much about the Establishment just yet other than that they're the cavalry. Some have complained that this book is full of references to British culture, and that it distracts. I can't speak to that, as the only reference I really get is the background gag with Fawlty Towers, and that was no more distracting than the "Easter Eggs" that artists are notorious for putting in their art. Instead, what I see is a book that is different from a lot of the super-heroic stuff out there, fitting in with the general mold of The Authority and Wildcats without aping it or trying too hard to be deep and complex. Email Randy Lander comments about this review.