While you sleep, nightmare warrior Stetson works to kill the things that torment you in your dreams. But she’s got a thing or two bothering her in Slumber #1, written by Tyler Burton Smith, illustrated by Vanessa Cardinali, colored by Simon Robins, lettered by Steve Wands and published by Image.
A couple of prime ministers and a president get assassinated by a grumpy ex-super spy in a crass exercise in the over-commoditization of entertainment in King of Spies #2, written by Mark Millar at Netflix, drawn by Matteo Scalera, colored by Giovanna Niro, lettered by Clem Robins and published by Image.
We’re running out of suspects. But we’re also running out of issues, so it all works out in Bylines in Blood #3, written by Erica Schultz and Van Jensen, drawn by Aneke, lettered by Cardinal Rae and published by AfterShock.
Will Nevin: Before we get to the books of the week, I’ve got to ask: Last week, when you said you didn’t know who Pierce Brosnan is, was that a bit? Please tell me it was a bit.
Ian Gregory: I’m aware that Pierce Brosnan was, at one point, James Bond, but a quick check of his filmography on Wikipedia reveals I’ve only ever seen him in one movie (The World’s End, which I didn’t even know he was in) and the James Bond video games (obviously, Goldeneye, but also Nightfire). I’m honestly not sure if that makes you feel better or worse.
Will: Ian, no one cares about the non-Bond entries on the man’s IMDb page. (But he was also in Mrs. Doubtfire; you’ve seen that, right?) I feel better now.
Ian: I have not.
Will: You know, I think I’m OK with that.
Slumber #1: The Nightmare Warrior with Her Own Problems ’n’ Stuff
Will: We’ve already established that I’m old. And maybe my brain don’t work so good? Anyway, for some reason, I thought Slumber was a vampire book — no damn idea how I latched onto that one. But, no, unlike last week’s Little Monsters, there are no vampires here — only a woman (Stetson) who will climb into your dreams to kill the recurring boogeymen giving you trouble on the reg. Screenwriter Tyler Burton Smith is new to the comics game, and I thought it showed in a couple of spots (generally where things got too talky and could have been cut down), but overall, I thought this a solid, colorful take on supernatural-ish crime. What did you think, young whippersnapper?
Ian: Unlike you, I had no vampire-related misconceptions about this book (and no preconceptions, either). I like this premise — “dream exterminators” are colorful and instantly understandable. I think where this issue lost me was how it times fell into montage or summary — there’s about 10 pages in the middle that just feel like a very quick overview, and you lose your sense of time. Is this before the murder in the first scene? During? After? It seemed like a flashback, but I still got lost a little in the pacing. That said, this was a pretty strong first issue.
Will: Yeah, I agree with you — this was soft in the middle and could have benefited from some tighter editing.
Colorist Simon Robins is the MVP of this first issue, right? And please, give me more M.C. Escher-like impossible geometry from illustrator Vanessa Cardinali. That tag team really “understood the assignment,” as the kids say, when they had to depict the book’s nightmares.
Ian: I love the way that the dreamworld is just a little sketchier than normal, and how Stetson and Zombie Pal stand out against the vagueness of the dream, like an actual intrusion of reality. The coloring here is an interesting contrast to Chicken Devil last week — in both books, I would describe the colors as “cacophonous,” but here I really like their effect. It all comes down to matching the coloring to the tone of the art and writing.
Will: Final question: You ever had any recurring nightmares?
Ian: Like anyone who’s ever been to college, I still regularly dream that I’m walking into a final for a class that I never once attended.
Will: Haven’t had that one … in a while. *withers and dies*
King of Spies #2: All the Bad Shit from the First Issue with None of the Good Shit
Will: This is what I get for giving “Mark Millar at Netflix” a chance. The parts of the first issue we both liked — the quiet, dignified beats of a trained government killer facing down his choices at the end of his life — are dead and buried so deeply under the earth in this second issue, I don’t know where the fuck to find them, and I also don’t care to start looking. Not only does Roland King come out as weirdly pro-Brexit in this issue, but Mark Millar at Netflix does two things that bug the shit out of me when it comes to small storytelling details.
The first: We’re shown a sniper who has intentionally blinded himself to “avoid distractions and focus his attention entirely on his craft.” Which, you know, whatever. But then his sniper rifle has a scope on it. The fuck? And the second thing that irked me was when King — having already eliminated two former British prime ministers — goes after George W. Bush … who’s shown flying in Air Force One as a former president. I guess these are things I could blame on the artist, but I choose to blame Mark Millar at Netflix.
Ian: I’m almost impressed that he’s chosen the least interesting possible direction to go with this story. I feel as if this entire issue could have been condensed to just a couple pages of people at the SIS recapping Roland’s rampage through high society. The things that actually piqued my interest — his son looking forward to taking on his father — are lost behind the not-very-interesting assassinations of these political figures. If there were any challenge to them, it might be interesting to watch, but instead Roland just splatters their brains and moves on. Even worse, it looks like we’re headed into some kind of Deadly Class assassin pileup. Like I said last week, we’ve seen it all before.
Will: I really don’t get the pacing here. This either needs to be shorter (as you suggest) or way longer. I mean, how do you burn through a president and two prime ministers in one issue? It reads like bad fan fiction.
Ian: It seems like Millar can’t decide where he wants to focus. Is it about Roland revenge-killing a bunch of politicians? Or is it spy combat? It seems like he wants to spend equal time on both, but I don’t think either concept is particularly interesting, so letting them both stand half-baked is just boring.
Will: Whatever stakes and dignity we had remaining are even further diminished with the introduction of Idris and Itzy, a South American pair of special operatives who King fucked over in the Panamanian invasion of 1990 and who now live as a symbiotic pair — one without legs and the other without arms.
It’s fucking dumb, Ian. I’m sorry for wasting our time.
Ian: I feel like this series would have been shocking and controversial in like, 2004 (if that!). Instead, it’s just gruesome. I can’t even buy into Roland’s motivations — without real systemic change, it’s just pointless. It’s pointless violence, and worse, boring violence.
Will: Oh, wow, this would have been a fun shitstorm to watch in 2004. Image and Mark Millar at Netflix (OK, that last part doesn’t work so well) could have pitched the series as “edgy” knowing they might get a bunch of attention for it, only to cave when Fox News devoted hours of disingenuous programming to how it’s “dangerous” and “un-American.”
But today? This thing passed like a fart in the night, and we’re fucking done with it — last two issues be damned.
Bylines in Blood #3: Who Done Done It Already?
Will: We get back to where our lil’ partnership began with Bylines #3, and I’m happy to say that the evil Mayor Wilkes — as I very much concluded — is not our murderer because he ends this issue dead as shit. If you made me bet $100 on the remaining suspects and I couldn’t put it all on Jenn (These are bizarre things to demand of me, Ian, I want to make that clear), I’d probably put $85 on the weirdo tech guy and $15 on the dead guy’s daughter. It’s gotta be one of those two, right?
Ian: I mean, those are like, the only two characters left (besides our dirty cops, who are kind of on Satya’s side now?). The problem is that everything works out too neatly to not be creepy tech dude — he was in a position to film the entire thing, so he could have easily set it up to frame Satya for the mayor’s murder, and it’s entirely possible he would benefit from it (by taking the evidence of Wilkes’ corruption but burning Satya so she couldn’t turn on him). It’s possible the daughter has the motive (“revenge” on Satya for leaving behind Denzin), and there’s clearly something there (in her unexplained money), but the tech link is unexplained. I’m pleased this story managed to complicate things at the last minute, though, even if it appears to just be one of two possible options left.
Will: Ahhh, yes, but the creepy tech guy’s tech failed at *precisely* the right moment. It’s suspicious, Ian.
Ian: It’s suspiciously suspicious, and if he weren’t so darn evil-looking, I might even have been surprised. It’s like this series subscribes to literary physiognomy.
Will: Oh shit, I had to look up what “physiognomy” means. Way to drop that one on the readers. And it wouldn’t be Bylines without once again returning to that “Lady Dick” nickname, this time as a three-page faux comic strip. It’s a cute idea (the strip, not the nickname), but as we’ve seen throughout this series, it gets clunky quick in the dialogue. It’s books like this that make me think I could be a comic book editor. We could have improved this with another pass, right?
Ian: The comic strip was cute, but I was annoyed that the series seems like it’s “addressing” the discourse around the use of “Lady Dick.” Satya narrates that “People always ask me why I chose such a stupid name.” You’re right! We are asking that! And the in-universe existence of a “Lady Dick” comic strip doesn’t justify that! It’s just so, so avoidable. Why not go with something like “Lady Gumshoe” if you want Lady-plus-old-timey-detective-name? Just, please, think about it.
Will: And Satya’s answer to that question is so unsatisfying. “They called me every name you can imagine, and some you couldn’t,” she says. “So I took the name as a middle finger to those assholes.” So it’s an insult? And a homage? We’ll find a way to not talk about this in the conclusion, but it’s still astoundingly clunky and the very weirdest hill to die upon.
Ian: It’s no good, Will.
Does This Smell OK?
- In Slumber, it’s implied that creatures can recur across dreams (the giant bunny named Valkira). Is there, like, a dream lounge, where these guys hang out when they’re off the clock? Getting a cup of coffee before making someone dream their teeth falling out?
- Cliche watch: “barking up the wrong tree” (x2) in Bylines and “a hill to die on” in Leftovers.
- Read the final two issues of King of Spies at your own peril. We’re not. Unless we get desperate for #content.
- Pierce Brosnan was the hottie new guy in Mrs. Doubtfire, a role that pretty much epitomized his ’90s sex symbol status.
- I’m not saying you’re a weirdo if you have parmesan rinds laying around and you’re stressed over what to do with them, but …you’re totally a weirdo.
- Breaking news from Wikipedia: “Leftovers from meals at home are often eaten later.”
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
Ian Gregory is a writer and co-host of giant robots podcast Mech Ado About Nothing.
