Codeflesh is a gritty and violent slice of bounty hunter fiction with nice Adlard art. Casey and Adlard deliver a dark, seedy story that intrigues with its less-than-perfect protagonist, too-good-for-him girlfriend and get-what's-coming-to-them criminals. Nudity, violence and cursing are well within its bounds; this is an R-rated comic, and both creators seem quite comfortable in that zone. Adlard mixes sex and violence in perfect combination, and Casey's dialogue sets up these characters as rough people living in a rough world.
Adlard's work contains some gritty realism, from the very brutal and real violence to the unflinching look at a woman doing drugs to a truly disturbing interpretation of a guy who has had his genitals replaced with flamethrower gas tanks. In its original incarnation, Adlard's art had colors or gray tones by other artists, and it never quite worked. Thankfully, for this collection, those additions have been stripped out, and the work looks much stronger in pure black and white.
Of course, Adlard builds atmosphere with his artwork, but Casey has to make it real. He does, with characters that don't feel all that unrealistic. Maddie's discussions with her friend are low-key and normal, and even the fight between a humanoid slug and a guy with a barcode mask features heavy breathing, people getting thrown around and a general sense that both sides of the fight are feeling it. The realistic violence is a big selling point of Codeflesh, actually. Cameron is addicted to the violence, and Adlard and Casey make sure and show the ugly downside of that addiction. These are not super-hero fistfights, despite the presence of masks and superhumans. These are brawls, with blood and broken bones and bruises and all the ugliness that real violence entails.
Codeflesh is definitely a realistic style of super-hero comic, and the relationships are also based on the real. Though I wish that Maddie had more time to develop, instead of being little more than an idealized object for Cameron to chase, the relationship between the two feels like a believable one. It's not based on yelling fights, it's just that the girl is just too tired to argue and the guy just unable to. There's also a nice friendship between Cameron and Staz, as it gives another viewpoint into the main character and also tips the reader off early that there's something wrong with Cameron's head. Staz can voice what the readers are thinking, or are going to be thinking, about Cam's mentally unhealthy action, and serve as an unbiased voice of reason where his girlfriend can't.
Adlard is very strong at the brutally normal fight scenes, but he also does a very nice job on the subdued importance of the character work, and his work on the faceless mask of Codeflesh is impressive as it conveys a certain amount of emotion with just a few lines. There's a sketch gallery that shows the initial design for Codeflesh, and I'm glad that Adlard took another pass at it, because the seemingly emotionless full face mask actually says a lot more about the character.
Codeflesh was originally a series of short stories in two different split books, and some of the inherent flaws of that format remain in this collection of the stories. I still get that feeling that just as the creators have really warmed up and are about to start swinging, the chapter ends and we've got to get through the setup again next issue. In addition, though there's a definite arc to the relationship of Cameron and Maddie, the graphic novel feels like chapter one of a larger story, despite an ending of sorts in the last chapter.
