THE RICK REMENDER HOUR

Starting NaWriRevDa (National Write A Review A Day) month off, a look at a couple of efforts from the fertile brain of writer Rick Remender, both published by Image Comics.

STRANGE GIRL #4
Drawn by Eric Nguyen

Unlike Mark Millar’s higher profile CHOSEN, there actually was a book with religious overtones that stuck to its guns and kept the courage of its own convictions this year. That book was Remender’s STRANGE GIRL. With the biblical rapture as its starting point, Remender took his lead character Bethany down a path that saw her grow from a very young girl to a survivor of the ultimate horror.

There was a delay between the last issue and this one, so it took me a bit of time to get back into the flow of the story, but it came easily enough. The reason STRANGE GIRL continues to work well is that it is founded on a premise that doesn’t restrict itself to a number of rules; Hell is now on Earth. That means magic, murder, mayhem… broad humor… anything goes. That infects the story with a very carefree attitude, and that attitude infects the reader. This issue, we get a much clearer look at how Bethany survived the horror of losing the world at an early age, and at how she survived being eaten or tormented along with the rest of the damned. It’s gripping, brutal stuff, and necessary at this point in the story so we can get fully invested in the series.

Rounding things out is the wonderful work of Eric Nguyen, whose work has never looked better. I’ve seen it written recently that this book needs a sale uptick to keep going, and I encourage those out there looking for something new and interesting to read to pick this book up and give it a shot.

FEAR AGENT #1
Drawn by Tony Moore

FEAR AGENT is Remender’s acknowledged tribute to the gonzo science-fiction comics created by guys like Wally Wood back in the 1950s, and for the most part, it succeeds pretty well. Heath Huston is a futuristic exterminator whose job it is to wipe out nasty alien infestations; in issue one, he’s on the task of tracking down a sort of troglodyte race who have been raiding human settlements and stealing equipment. This being a comic book and not a documentary, it isn’t quite as easy as Huston would hope, and a nasty complication arises in the process of trying to eliminate his prey.

Deliberately retro in its writing and artistic style, there’s a smirking machismo here that soaks through each page. This is the classic approach writ large; the hero is a drinker on Warren Ellis scale, and in love with his completely phallic weaponry. Taking it with the tongue it buries so deeply in cheek, you can’t help but read it and have a great laugh. Nothing here should even remotely be taken seriously.

The one glaring flaw is that, like I did in the above paragraph, the script narration resorts to a few modern phrasings and anachronisms, and they throw you out of the moment. FEAR AGENT’S so immersed in the moment and milieu otherwise that those bits feel false and poorly executed. Balancing that is the long-awaited return of Tony Moore to a substantial work. He’s been mostly AWOL since he exited THE WALKING DEAD, and it’s nice to see his work again, and in full color to boot.

FEAR AGENT and STRANGE GIRL provide a nice balance to the way that SEA OF RED rather fizzled after its opening issue, and are both worthy of your time and dinero.

/Mason