Hinterkind #4 – Review

By: Ian Edginton (story), Francesco Trifogli (art), Cris Peter (colors)

The Story: It’s never a good thing when your doctor is sicker than you are.

The Review: One of the unfortunate necessities of serial fiction is that it doesn’t have much tolerance for stories that need extra time to get their acts together.  With novels, you come in prepared for a few chapters of exposition, where the plot is slowly constructing itself, because you have the luxury of reading on until you get some action.  When the story comes to you in monthly doses, it’s natural to expect a little more bang for your buck.

It’s pretty clear that Edginton has spent the last few issues painstakingly putting the big pieces of Hinterkind together, establishing the various character groupings (Prosper and Angus, Asa’s scouting party, Hobb’s gang, Starla’s posse, etc.) and multiple plotlines (Angus’ mutation, the oncoming Hinterkind conflicts, humanity’s general survival, etc.).  The title isn’t lacking in material, just cohesiveness.  Four issues in, you’d be hard-pressed to explain to a potential reader what Hinterkind is about.

This is so even after Edginton repeatedly emphasizes a rudimentary theme: survival.  Though it manifests differently for each of the characters, their individual storylines all boil down to a form of self-preservation: Angus leaves New York to avoid persecution, Prosper to avoid a life she can’t choose; Starla seeks to advance her position with the Sidhe even as she resents their regime; the Sidhe are concerned with expanding their dominion against other Hinterkind, the New York settlers only wish to maintain their limited livelihoods, and the patchwork soldiers are focused entirely on staving off their self-inflicted dooms.

As long as these characters’ interests remain divergent, Edginton will be hard-pressed to move them in one common direction.  Although this issue comes short of pulling them together, it does set them up to do so, despite resistance from certain individuals.  As the link between Angus and Asa, Prosper is the most natural candidate to serve the necessary unifying role.  It is she, after all, who sticks up for Hobb when he’s threatened by Colonel Doctor William Godwin (the man behind the patchwork soldiers), and it’s also she who protests Godwin’s resistance to companionship (“But we are your people.  We’re human, the same as you.”  “Not anymore.”).

While Edginton is on the verge of making a breakthrough in the plot, his execution remains a problem.  I can point out two areas in urgent need of improvement.  First, the general flatness of the characters, especially Angus and Prosper.  They’re not unlikable protagonists by any means, but they also lack that extra spark of life to be worth attachment.  You can only imagine what this means for your sympathy with the remaining cast.  Second, Edginton needs to stop broadcasting his overarching messages via the Book of Monday excerpts already.  They do pretty much nothing for the story except fill it with melodramatic vagaries (“The Blight wasn’t the end of things, nor the coming of the Hinterkind the beginning.  They were merely punctuation in the progression of life on this world that fancied [sic] was uniquely our own.”) or pointless displays of pretentiousness (“To quote Tennyson, ‘And men the flies of latter spring, that lay their eggs and sting and sing and weaver their pettycalls and die.’”).

Trifogli has a similarly rough style to Alberto Ponticelli, only with a significantly tighter line and thus conventional appearance.  While this is sufficient to serve the relatively simple needs of the story, Trifogli lacks the power to give it impact.  Godwin and his fellow patchwork soldiers are meant to be mutilated grotesques, yet most of the time, they simply look like people afflicted with an unfortunately unattractive skin disease.  Even in close-ups, Trifogli fails to emphasize the details you need to appreciate the horror before you: the surgical stitches, the excess scarring, the piecemeal parts scavenged from various Hinterkind.

Conclusion: Getting all the characters in one place is an important step, but still one short of having a coherent flow to the story.

Grade: C+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – I can’t help noticing that there aren’t any women among the patchwork soldiers.  Hm.

– Once Angus learns enough fine control with his tail to wield a gun, he’s pretty much set, I’d say.