By: Jim McCann (story), Rodin Esquejo & Sonia Oback (art)
The Story: Who says a good musical can’t bring folks closer together?
The Review: I’m sure I mentioned something before about the storytelling triumph of taking something unimportant and making it important, but that really has nothing on the challenge of taking a total mistake and making it important. With my distracted habits, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve discovered, after a significant amount of labor, that I screwed up some crucial detail or other and had to scan fifty pages to find it or (every now and then) just start over.
Now, the Jane-versus Rosalind Russell mix-up in this case (and we know it’s a genuine authorial mix-up beause McCann admits it in the back matter of the issue) in itself isn’t crucial, at least not where the big picture comes in. In fact, besides sticklers and showtune lovers, probably no one would’ve noticed the error. But if you did happen to catch it, it sure would discredit Jo’s love and familiarity for Technicolor musicals.
So kudos to McCann for taking the trouble to not cover up the mistake but call attention to it and actually getting some good use out of it. By doing so, he establishes a lot of things for us. Elle’s deep gleekery (a term I hated when first coined, for obvious reasons, but which I find appropriate here) shows that her memories are all there, only she can’t, or won’t, access them. It doesn’t follow that she can remember the words to Pink Floyd songs, yet not recognize the people in her life. As her traumatic vision on the “memory wall” indicates, there’s a lot she’s repressing.
The Jane/Rosalind snafu also anchors Jo as our protagonist in the waking world, taking her best friend’s place. It’s clear the two were kindred spirits pre-coma; the two shared a love of performance, taste in movies, and even appearance, to a certain extent. So you shouldn’t be surprised to find the two of them have minds compatible enough to make contact even when they’re unconscious. Whatever help Bobby and Crenshaw can provide to Elle, it won’t be much use if she can’t physically act on them, so she’ll have to rely on Jo for that.
Other than Jo, whom McCann plainly told us to trust, there’s no one else we can truly rely on. This is a mystery, so we must always beware the red herrings. This issue, McCann draws our attention to Frankie Burton, nursing assistant to the driven Dr. Gellar, as a possible culprit. In fact, we have three moments which does everything short of point arrows at Frankie as a suspect creeper (check out that last panel of him sporting a smile that mixes Mona Lisa with Dateline predator). But McCann defeats all of these with equally ambiguous moments for nearly everyone else, successfully making the Who’s Who of this title a thoroughly intriguing bunch.
You can’t overstate how crucial the characters’ body language is in keeping the suspense and suspicions high, the lifeblood of a mystery, and so much of that comes down to Esquejo’s art. As highly charged as the emotions come through in this issue, he portrays it all with great subtlety and care, making you always feel like there’s something more going on in the scene than what you merely see. Gripping someone’s shoulders can be either threatening or desperate, smiles come with both malice and compassion—whatever your interpretation of events are, the visuals support it, a mighty accomplishment.
Conclusion: McCann intends to inch us forward on this story and as long as he keeps the cord of tension this tight, you’ll be down for the whole mile, no matter how long it takes.
Grade: B+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – As much as I wish I can say that Eddie’s douchey behavior is comically unrealistic, I’ve met too many people in real life like him to say so, sadly.
– I’m very fond of Jo. How many grown women jump up and down on their bed in sheer excitement?
Grade
Conclusion