The new Elisa is cutting ties at a time when she may need them the most.
Creative Staff:
Story: Chris Sebela
Artwork: Harvey Tolibao
What They Say:
Ghost’s war on crime in Chicago is attracting the interests of the city’s powerful—and her friends may pay the price. A gruesome new villain is revealed, who offers to help the movers and shakers rid themselves of “the lady in white” and let them return to crime as usual!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ve certainly struggled with this series since it started as it felt like it was a little by committee and not quite sure what kind of book it wanted to be. The arcs involving the demons were decent at best but it was too big and too much in a too soon kind of way. When we got a smaller standalone issue focusing on Elisa’s past, things started to gel well. After that, it took a little bit of time to work through a change in how the book would be approached, but we ended up in the last issue with an Elisa that was finally interesting as she had a handle on who she was and who she is, realizing that she can’t truly be both and was doing a disservice to each of them because of it. Her actions with rescuing people and watching over her sister certainly made for some proactive time in a meaningful way for a lot of people.
But as we see here, the further she goes in helping those in need and being more aggressive about it, the more she’s cutting off those she’s worked with. Elisa is becoming Ghost in a more permanent sense at this point as she doesn’t change into normal clothes and is pretty much living in her “uniform” at this point, which really concerns Tommy. He’s trying to sway her back a bit, but Elisa’s also getting a lot more blatant grief from Vaughn over what she’s doing and that makes her unreceptive across the board at this stage. She sees herself doing good and accomplishing things and those that are friends are holding her back in a way. Which makes it easier for her to cut them off all the more by moving out to her own place in the thick of things so she can be closer to the action and help more people. It’s a kind of dangerous spiral to be sure, but you also have to appreciate some of her focus on things after feeling so powerless to effect real change since coming back.
A lot of time is given over to both sides of this in the book and it’s definitely dialogue heavy, which is good. Understanding where everyone stands, having them talk and express it, you know where they are and what they feel rather than just a snarky look or a glance askew. Elisa does some more work in helping other women from their situations here and that plays out well as we again see how grateful they are and with how much in need they are of getting help. But we also get the first look at what’s going to provide some real change for Elisa in two different ways. The first is the arrival of Mr. Park, who has come to deal with her at the request of the moneyed interests of the city. He has some interesting and amusing time with the mayor who realizes how out of her depth she is. We also get some stronger clarity with the friends side of Elisa’s life as things are not going smooth there and we might get a real shock to her system. At the same time, I hope there’s no backing out here. Thinning the series of the support cast is a big plus for me.
In Summary:
Ghost finally feels like its on the right track for what this property should be. Sebela doesn’t shy from a lot of dialogue that has some actual meaning and tension with in it as a lot of it comes across as a verbal action scene with the accusations and defense. Elisa’s story is one that feels like it’s taking shape and she’s grabbing control of her life, though I expect the events coming up will push her back the other way some to balance things out a bit. I’m not quite sure that’ll be the right thing, but I won’t be surprised by it. This issue establishes more of this new, focused, Elisa and it’s one that I like. Harvey Tolibao took on the art duties last time around and this time and he’s providing the right look for the book as well, which is helping to shape it all up right. Elisa’s looking good, there’s a good sense of the city and its lower rungs that Elisa is working in and combined with the color design from Dan Jackson, it’s all coming together well, particularly the police chase sequence towards the end. I’m finding myself starting to be optimistic about the book, but also wary of going to the easy route.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 3rd, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
