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FOUR WOMEN #2
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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DC Comics/Homage imprint
Writer/Artist: Sam Kieth
Inks: Jim Sinclair
Colors: Alex Sinclair
Letters: Naghmeh Zand
Editor: Scott Dunbier
Price: $2.95 US/$4.95 CAN |
I was a little hard on Four Women #1 because I felt like Kieth was speeding through introductions to the characters, but the second issue more than made up for that. There's an element that runs through much of Kieth's work regarding women and their vulnerabilities, which is ironic given that he also writes some of the toughest and most resilient women I've read, and Four Women is no exception on either count. This issue
is all about a situation that I'm sure most have experienced, the terrifying
feeling of being all alone with a threat around you. It's a worst-case scenario
of what might happen when your car breaks down, and Kieth does a great job of
showing the anger, fear and frustration of the events.
One of the things that Zero Girl had and The Maxx lacked was a clarity, a fairly straightforward storytelling style. Kieth splits the difference with Four Women, jumping around
somewhat in time and using an unreliable narrator but sticking pretty much to
easily-described events, without mystical or extra-dimensional story elements.
Donna is unreliable because she's been traumatized, but she's lucid enough to
give the reader a pretty good idea of the context. There's a feeling going on
that Donna isn't telling the entire truth, mostly through her somewhat
irrational anger at Bev, and that provides a nice element of mystery to keep
readers going through the series.
The story itself deals with
events that are more commonplace than Jungle Queens of the Outback or girls with
geometry-based powers, and that grounding in reality makes it all the more
terrifying. The characters are four very normal and believable women, and their
antagonists all too believable as well. Keith uses viewpoints that keep the men
hidden, making them shadows and ghouls and monsters more than vulnerable men,
and they don't speak much either. They are the grown-up equivalent of the
bogeymen, lurking outside the car and impossible to effectively fight off.
This issue works largely on
conveying the sense of danger that the women in the car are feeling. They don't
know exactly who these men are, they are in the middle of nowhere and though
they outnumber their attackers, they are definitely outmatched. Keith does a
wonderful job of conveying the claustrophobic setting of the car as well as the
violent and terrifying behavior of the attackers.
Four Women had started out as one of the more grounded
and realistic of Kieth's stories, lacking the fantastic and often terrifying
elements that his previous efforts have had. However, the grounding in the real
world makes the events of this issue all the more frightening, as the reader's
mind drifts to something like this happening to friends or family and comes to
the disturbing conclusion that it's not all that far-fetched, and that it's
being depicted with chilling verisimilitude.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
