Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Review: The United States of Murder Inc. Volume 1: Truth

The United States of Murder Inc. Volume 1: Truth The United States of Murder Inc. Volume 1: Truth by Brian Michael Bendis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This aims to be a high-concept .45 caliber blow-you-away story. It delivers, but more like a .22.

Like a lot of people, I admired Bendis and Oeming’s Powers. That was high-concept, too, but it also seemed in step with a lot of the best comics coming out at the same time. In fact, while it struck me as less good than Astro City (to take my favorite of the time), it seemed a perfect summation of what I think of as third-wave superhero stories. The first was the “golden age” stuff of hey, cool, it’s Superman and Batman. The second was the Marvel innovation; Spiderman (or insert your favorite here) may be a superhero, but he also has problems. The third got started with The Watchmen; what’s it like to be an ordinary human in a world where there are superheroes.

No one handled that question more directly than Bendis in Powers, and Oeming’s art was the perfect, blunt complement. Here, though, the concept seems less urgent, less a question that others are asking with different effect. Courtesy of an alternate history that we get in dribs and drabs, the organized crime families of the United States have established a separate government. They control “the territories,” which seems to be much of the Midwest. Cool, but, why? It’s less clear what the concept is supposed to help us explore.

Still, as a guy who studies organized crime, I’m always game to see a clever take on that sort of premise. Beyond that original concept, though, there isn’t too much that impresses at a conceptual level. [SPOILER] So the government sets our protagonists up; the CIA frames them for the murder of a United States Senator with the hope that the gangs will turn on each other and the government will be able to pick them apart one by one. Why then would one agent more or less spill the beans and blow up the plan?

More broadly, the characters here are largely flat and predictable. Valentine gets ‘made’ in the opening panels, and Jagger is a bad-ass hit-woman who has no trouble taking out whole squads of adversaries even when they get the jump on her. And she looks a little like Scarlett Johansson, though everything in Oeming’s line work gets thickened and bruised.

All that said, there is a nice energy to the story. Bendis may not bring the same insight into the zeitgeist as he did in Powers, but he may have an even sharper sense of narrative. There’s no condescension. He gives you enough of the story to figure things out if you’re paying attention. If you aren’t, goes the implication, then you ought to go find something easier to read. It’s not Ed Brubaker, but it’s not bad at all. I found myself admiring it more and more as I read, even to the point of starting a search for volume two.

Oeming’s drawings work a little less well, though. Instead of the usual color on white, this is more neon on black. I guess that makes sense as the unofficial colors of Las Vegas, but it’s wearing. Too much of the art seems to be over-caffeinated, and that makes it all the harder to distinguish climax from set-up.

So, this one may not come with full Dirty Harry firepower, but it still gets off a good shot. I found myself enjoying it more and more the longer I read, and that’s always a good sign. And, since I really am looking for volume two, I guess I’m already reloading.


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