Local Man #13 // Review
The faceless horde of Farmington, Wisconsin has his mom. He’s going-in to save her. He’s not alone. He’s getting driven there by a big guy in a truck. The truck might not be named “Black Beauty,” but that’s what it says on the tailgate. Anyway: it doesn’t matter if the truck’s got a name. What matters is what’s inside it. There’s a showdown coming in Local Man #13. The writing team of Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs continue their story of super powers in small town Wisconsin as brought to the page through the art of Fleecs and the colors of Brad Simpson.
It’s not just the two of them that are in the truck. Open the trailer and you’ll see a whole mess of guns and ammo. Granted: it’s not exactly like...organized or anything, but there’s a LOT of firepower back there. And his super power is just...y’know...he never misses. So if he’s got a lot of bullets and they’ve got a lot of targets, it doesn’t really matter that they’ve got a small army of people. What matters is...they’ve got his mom and he’s come to get her. Things are going to get weird, though. He’s going to find out that things are just a bit more complicated than he might have hoped for.
Seeley and Fleecs deliver a lot of tension. It's a collision course between a couple of people and a small army. And there's a hell of a lot of drama going on. But it's not framed in a way that would really amplify the drama. There's quite a lot of chaos going on. And there is quite a lot of, build up to the actual conflict. But it's not balanced in a way that really does justice to the drama that the writers have been building up to for the past dozen issues or so. It's a fun issue, it's just not living up to the potential that. Seeley and Fleecs seemed to be approaching with this issue.
Fleecs has a solid grasp drawing in the attention in a small town. There's an earthbound realism about what's going on as the flakes of snow fly through the air. Simpson’s colors really deliver the idea of a rural battle in small town Wisconsin on the edge of the colder months of the year. There are some really intensely jarring explosions of action that lash out of the page here and there, but they’re hitting the page in a way that never quite hammers home the full tragedy of what’s going on.
There’s a major jolt to the narrative that goes way beyond any small town battle. It really SHOULD be hitting the page with a bit more intensity, though. This is particularly tragic as a major moment passes before the issue reaches its final panel and it really should have more of an impact than it manages. There’s a really nice atmosphere and a really intense build-up of tension, but it doesn’t quite hit when it really needs to do so.
Grade: C+
