Manipulations from afar.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Werther Dell’Edera
Colors: Lee Roughridge
Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
When local cops arrive and shut off power and water to the Land, Grace knows its not a problem with the bribe money–it’s her husband Jim orchestrating her downfall.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Lone Wolves run of the Briggs Land series has been pretty good in getting us new views of how the place works and the people involved. Brian Wood excels at these kinds of stories, not going deep in a way but cutting to the core with few words and actions to show who they are. With this issue we get the next arc underway and it’s one that brings in Werther Dell’Edera on the art duties. It does feel very weird not to have Mack Chater’s artwork here but Dell’Edera won me over recently elsewhere and his style fits in perfectly here to give us that kind of rough and angular style that just feels like it speaks to what the subject matter is. Having Lee Roughridge continuing on with color work definitely helps to give it continuity and that goes a long way here.
While we’ve seen what Grace has had to deal with since taking control of the place from Jim, Jim’s role has been fairly well reduced after the initial impact of it all. She’s had plenty to deal with but now that things have gotten even more public with the hikers’ situation and shots fired, he’s intent on reclaiming things as it’s likely going to impede his own release from prison. That has him working with his childhood friend of Laird to work things so that Briggs Land is really starting to suffer under Grace’s leadership. With some well-placed bribes thanks to new funding while in prison, the power and water are cut from the place and that sets tensions high. There’s some amusement to be had in that they were basically bribing police and others to look the other way for years as they siphoned onto outside sources but you know they worked it out in their heads that it was their’s for the taking anyway.
What becomes instructive with this installment is that we see how Jim ended up in prison, or least the setup for it. Stepping back some twenty years in time, he and a young Noah are in DC where the President will be giving a speech outside near the National Mall. That has him setting up to take a shot at him and he’s using Noah to ensure that they can get a good look at things, Noah unknowing about it. It doesn’t go well to be sure but seeing how that impacted Noah over the years – and his having to walk back home from DC by himself, certainly changed his views to some degree. It’s interesting seeing the younger Jim in this form and how he approaches what he’s doing and while I hope we get a few more blanks filled in on this I suspect it’s going to be left to the reader’s imagination as to the why and details of what Jim was hoping to accomplish and for what reason.
In Summary:
Events are moving quickly with Jim pulling the strings with a bit of help and seeing how fast it does escalate is intriguing. There are a lot of wheels in motion to keep a place like this going and Jim and others are able to knock on it quickly and easily while Grace is going to struggle with it because of recent events. Wood’s script keeps things moving right along and I really enjoyed what Dell’Edera brought to the page as it fits with what Mack Chater has done but still retains his own style and quirks that drew me to his material. This arc could shape up to be my favorite of the run if it capitalizes on a lot of things that it can draw on so I’m pretty hopeful with it.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 11th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
