by Randy Lander

THE SANDMAN PRESENTS: THE CORINTHIAN #2 Neutral (4/10) DC Comics/Vertigo imprint Writer: Darko Macan Artist: Danijel Zezelj Colors: Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh & Jamison Letters: John Costanza Editor: Shelly Bond Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN After a promising start, The Corinthian has turned into little more than debauchery-by-numbers. I'm not really invested in any of these characters, and the point of Macan's script seems to be largely "look how terrible the world is," which is hardly a shocking revelation. The conflicts amongst the various cast members are potentially interesting, but before we've gotten much of a feel for the politics, the chapter is over, and I'm unsure what more can be offered up in the next issue. Zezelj's artwork doesn't help matters, as it is too abstract to really convey the feelings of pain, unrequited love and despair that are so important to Macan's script. Though his work is terrific for showing darkness and conveying atmosphere, I have never been able to get into the characters portrayed by Zezelj. They are too flat and emotionless, lacking the kind of subtlety required to display emotions. And while his artwork here is an improvement from El Diablo, which was itself an improvement over Congorilla, I'm still just not much of a fan. I'll give credit to Macan and Zezelj for painting an effective picture of despair and misery in this series. The silent sequence that shows the fate of Otto during the war, the various problems that befall Gordon and Rosalind or the murder of Mario are all brutal, vicious and sad. The Corinthian is the dark mirror of humanity, and Macan and Zezelj are definitely doing a good job of showing the dark side of humanity in this series thus far. However, the problem is that it doesn't seem to have much of a point. I'm not entirely certain who this story is supposed to be about. The Corinthian's name is on the title, but he's really little more than an agent of chaos in this story. Charles Constantine and Pestilence both seem to be fairly important players, but neither of them gets any decent time to develop. The same is true of Amedeo and Silvana. Had we had time to learn about these characters, perhaps come to care about a few of them, the big bloody mess at the end might have had some resonance. As is, it feels rather hollow. There is something of a story here. The Corinthian is moving on from his first host to a new one, and does so in the most bloody and awful way possible, causing harm to everyone around him. Unfortunately, there's not really much of a feeling of consequences to it. Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.