Capsule Review: Fatale #16 (Image)

Write: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colours: Elizabeth Breitweiser

It’s the nineties and Jo has amnesia and has shacked up with a dysfunctional grunge band. Lance, our main protagonist, is robbing banks to fund the making of a video he hopes will help get them back on track. The singer is based, a little too obviously, on Syd Barrett as he starts to lose his mind and talent. There are others, a guitarist who suffers from nightmares, a practicing doctor and the singer’s girlfriend. I think that is what their roles are. The guitarist is a definite as it is shown in this issue, but the other two just are not memorable enough for me to care what relationship they have to the story. Meanwhile a serial killer with a predilection for necrophilia is hunting for Jo, having previously believed that he’d killed her and that her fresh corpse was waiting for him back in his lair.

Jo seems a little more manipulative than we’ve previously seen, and that makes her character somewhat unpleasant and difficult to empathise with. Sean Phillips turns in another excellent issue of art, his tone retaining and emphasising the dread atmosphere, beautifully supported by the palette of Elizabeth Breitweiser. His portrayal of Jo is perfect, keeping her alluring and sensual without showing too much. This is no titillating pornographic comic. Still there is one misstep when the scene switches to Darcy, the singer’s girlfriend, and we see her on the toilet, knickers around her knees. I’m no prude but I’m not sure what purpose this panel serves. Is it just to try to be edgy (which it isn’t)? There are any number of images that could be used so why this one? We’ve not seen anyone else on the loo; it isn’t a slice of life story where the protagonist wants to bare all; there has been no horror or threat focused on the loo (or if there has been I’ve missed it);  Darcy isn’t even a particular focus of the story thus far. It just seems a little gratuitous and lets the whole thing down somewhat.

As accomplished as it is, I have some reservations about Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Fatale at the moment. Originally this was meant to be a twelve issue series, before Ed Brubaker extended it to an ongoing series. Unfortunately it is starting to seem a little stretched, and I’m unsure as to how much life this particular concept has in it. We’re only on chapter two, so things may change, but up to now this seems like, yet again, Jo is going to mesmerise the men around her, and the men will meet a sticky end and likely will never be the same again. I’ve loved this series, but the story needs a resolution unless there is some major development. Otherwise we could be another sixteen issues down the line and reading about some men falling for Jo and coming to a sticky end again, and again, and again….That failure to live up to its original promise would be the real horror.