It’s only going to get more disturbing.
Creative Staff:
Story: Greg Rucka
Art: Toni Fejzula
What They Say:
A conjuring doesn’t work out as planned, and one man’s life is in danger . . . but when you have the powers of the devil at your fingertips, how bad can it get? Double-crossed and angry, the mystery man is on the hunt . . . and Veil is his target.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening issue of Veil certainly presented us with some familiar tropes, particularly the beautiful naked girl that’s a blank slate walking through a city trying to find out who she is. But like the start of most stories, these are part for the course. It’s more about the execution and the nuance of it as the story starts moving forward that will really define it and showcase it as a good or bad way of doing things. What definitely helped was the approach of the characters as used in that issue since Veil herself is a blank slate as she gets to be defined by others, first by the thugs trying to take advantage of her to Dante trying to help her out. And it was all done up in some very stylish and highly appealing artwork from Toni Fejzula, which allowed it to leap off the page in a fantastic and distinctive way.
This issue is similar in some ways as it’s more about the early definitions and being part of a larger narrative of the five issue run that we’re getting here. With Veil having shown what she’s capable of, with a lot of blood and carnage outside of Dante’s apartment, the two have bolted before the police can grab them. The leads to a tense flight that Dante takes down the alleys of the city, one that puts them in a bind until Veil once against seemingly unconsciously uses her abilities to allow them to bypass it. This is what continues to freak out Dante, now that he’s had time to process it a little bit, and he has no idea how to actually handle it. He’s not in a “this is cool” kind of mode but one where he’s trying to grasp what’s happened, why it’s happened and how it’s going to rain down a lot of crap on both of them. But he’s also still intent on protecting her since she doesn’t really knowing anything, something she reminds him about rather insistently, at least until some cops show up in the diner they’re trying to catch their breath in. Things go badly there, though I dislike that they go to the well of the rapist cop bit since it just seems too easy and a caricature, even if it does happen in real life. It just didn’t feel like it served the story or characters well.
While this serves almost as the bookends of the issue, it’s the middle act that’s really intriguing as you know it will go back to what Veil herself is all about. With a man named Scarborough and his guards along with a mysterious and almost occult looking man named Cormac look at where a series of sacrifices were made in some abandoned building, we start to get a look at the more mystical aspects of the series. With Cormac going on about how things went down here and that not all is as it seems, Scarborough represents the money side well as they’re frustrated by the lack of results from what was promised, though you get the clue that the promises weren’t; quite as clearly defined as Scarborough believes. It’s a dialogue heavy piece as the two go back and forth with each believing that they hold the true power in the conversation, but watch it as the two push against each other in this way is pretty intriguing as it reveals more of what’s going on in a very oblique way, giving us a character in Cormac that you really want to see what’s going on with him and what he’s involved in.
In Summary:
Veil was pretty engaging with its first issue even as it went with familiar ideas and concepts because it did it with such style, both through the panel layouts and artwork but also the choice for quiet scenes with no dialogue to allow the art itself to tell the tale. Here, it goes for the opposite approach of using a lot of dialogue to explain things, but without the hook to give us what we need to actually understand what’s being talked about. We’re like Veil in some ways, coming into the middle of the story and trying to figure it all out, and that makes it a kind of welcome challenge in some ways, especially for a miniseries. This installment definite gives us a lot to chew on, but it’s likely only going to make more sense once we get a few more answers to put it all together. But as with the first issue, Rucka and Fejzula have provided something that’s engaging and intriguing with its characters and their situations while still teasing out what it’s actually all about. Some books can frustrate quickly with its design and the doling out of breadcrumbs, but we get a lot to sink our teeth into here that will hopefully come together into a delicious whole by the end.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: April 2nd, 2014
MSRP: $3.50
