For quite some time Ed Brubaker has been one of my favorite writers, one the few I could go out and buy something without even know what is it about, especially if it's another collaboration with the excellent British artist Sean Phillips. Currently they have a working agreement with Image Comics, and in 2020 they decided to switch from the usual format of serialized comic books to original graphic novels.
Reckless is a long form story to be told in a series of original graphic novels. The eponymous Reckless appeared at the end of 2020 and Friend of the Devil came out on the spring of 2021, and I have already commented both, so it's time to write about Destroy All Monsters, third book in the series, released in October 2021.
Ethan Reckless, a former FBI agent, offers specialized assistance to whoever might need it, ranging from locating missing persons or lost objects, to engage in not always legal activities, provided Ethan judges it to be the right thing to do. As part of the payment for one of his first jobs he received El Ricardo, an abandoned movie theater in Los Angeles that has since become his base of operations.
He is assisted by Anna, a young woman who sorts out prospective clients and is quite capable at doing all kinds of research. The series is told in a progressive manner, with each book telling a complete story set some time after the previous one, slowly building a longer narrative. Reckless was set in the early eighties, and Friend of the Devil took place in 1985.
In Destroy All Monsters we jump to 1988. Ethan and Anna's peculiar friendship is going through some difficult times, and Ethan is so distraught that he makes some uncharacteristic mistakes. Without Anna's help to run some background checks, he takes a job taking his clients word at face value and without questioning what they ask him to do, which in time leads to all kind of complications, putting Ethan at risk along with other people.
His client is a politician who wants him to follow a real estate businessman who betrayed his partner, ruining an investment plan that would benefit a neglected community in downtown L.A. looking instead for a way to make a bigger profit. Ethan's client wants to expose the corruption that allowed the entrepreneur to do so, and maybe even restore the original plan, but he seems to have his own secrets and Ethan takes to long to realize that something else is going on.
With Reckless, Brubaker and Phillips work in a way that allows each book to stand on its own, as if they were separate stories that anyone can read without needing to know what has gone before. Even so, I'd recommend reading them all in order, as the stories feed on each other even if there's no central story. With each new book Brubaker seems more at home with these characters and their world, and as a result the reader can become more invested with it in a progressive way.
It could be argued that the reader is the one growing more familiar with this world and characters and not the writer, but one way or the other it's clear that each new volume is a little bit more complex and ambitious than the one before. Brubaker and Phillips craft has been top notch for quite some time, but maybe the freedom resulting from not needing to break everything in equal sized chapters is inspiring the to do their best work in these graphic novels.
Another aspect of the Reckless series worth mentioning is the amount of research that Brubaker has done to make these stories feel true to the time that they depict. No matter how far fetched his noirish approach to storytelling can be, or how far fetched the situations he proposes may seem, there's a certain air of authenticity in these stories that adds a very special flavor to the whole series, and in this volume in particular it has to do with the real state development in some zones of L.A.
This allows his world to feel like a one where people can live, and in fact has done done so. In some ways this becomes a balancing act, especially for people who has complained about how Ethan is a hard character to empathize with. Is important to understand that this is by design, as since the first book it was clear that Ethan is not a good person. He has his own code of honor, but same as some of the best noir antiheroes, he's willing to do nasty things to other people.
There's also an ongoing insistence by Ethan himself about his supposed inhability to feel any emotion, situation that creates a sense of disconnection between him and other characters, except maybe Anna. Her absence makes Ethan reevaluate some things at the same time that we get to know more about both of them. In this volume we can see the contrast between the dark melancholy around Ethan and Anna's bubbly disposition.
And as for Sean Phillips' art, is amazing to see all the thing that he can do in any page. He has a clear narrative that is very easy to follow, and an amazing capacity to use any location as another tool to tell the story in a visual manner, wether it is by creating an ideal atmosphere for every scene, or by finding a way to use the surroundings (or lack of them) as a tool to manipulate the rythm of the action in any given sequence.
One aspect of his work that is often ignored is his great use of facial expressions to add emotional weight to scenes where there's not much action. You can tell a lot about the characters just by their faces, like the cynical smile of a corrupt cop or the evident sneer of a politician dealing with people they consider inferior. There's a scene with Anna and Ethan talking on the phone with a perfect depiction of Anna's changing mood as the conversation progresses.
Jacob Phillips color work is also worthy of a shout out. The best color artists tend to add to the narrative, and Jacob is near the top of the craft. His color palettes change with the time of day (warm pinks and yellows for daylight, cold purples and blues for night), and he has a great sense of contrast and composition. I especially like the way that he adds to the action by using saturated colors that emphasize the tension and intensity.
One of Sean's greatest talents is the feel for composition and narrative clarity on every page. His toolbox include all kind of visual tricks, from manipulating the gutters (or lack of) to playing with the size of every panel as ways to affect the rythm of the story, or using the lettering as a way to guide the eyes of the reader through the page. His son then complements the art by adding the right atmosphere to each scene, making their collaborations a flawless display of graphic narrative.
There's a lot more that can be said about this talented trio of authors, but nothing that myself or others hadn't said before. In any case, is far better to check any of their collaborations and analyze the various ways they have of feeding off each others' strengths to consistently produce some of the best looking books out there, and Destroy All Monsters is no exception.
If you like criminal fiction or neo-noir storytelling, Reckless should be at the top of your checklist every time there's a new volume out. The original plan was to do five books, but they have confirmed that there going to be more than that even if there's a pause after completing the fifth one. Destroy All Monsters is a worthy addition to anyone's personal library, same as anything from the impressive team formed by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Jacob Phillips.
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