Black Cloak #6 // Review
Detective Phaedra has seen something awful. Not entirely unheard of in her line of work, but this is something different altogether. This is something terrible. One does not witness what she had and simply walks away from it...partially because of the severity of the horror, but mostly because one does not make it into a place where such things happen without being noticed. Detective Phaedra finds herself up against serious danger from the heart of authority in Black Cloak #6. Writer Kelly Thompson delivers a powerful revelation that shakes her characters in the ongoing crime fantasy procedural Artist/colorist Meredith McClaren brings the drama to the page.
Lysanthir is the first to find Detective Phaedra. He's more than willing to simply sacrifice them so that they can be eliminated from the situation, but those in real authority aren't quite so brutal. The queen herself is involved in the matter, and she's still determining how to handle the situation. There's a certain loss of basic empathy that comes from running the city the way that she does, but she is only partially without kindness. She will have to confront some heavy truths to make the right decision.
Thompson ends the first arc of what is rapidly proving to be one of the more interesting narrative fusions on the comics rack today. High fantasy mixes with political intrigue, family drama, and police procedural to form itself into something quite unlike anything else that's coming out right now. On a certain level, there's only a little separating the first arc of the series from Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The protagonist finds out what kind of horror runs the city and what kind of despicable personalities are behind it. And they aren't simply trying to be villains. They've done something miraculous. They've just lost touch with their humanity.
McClaren uses clean lines and sharp, simple colors to create a very antiseptic world. It's the kind of dystopian vision that hasn't been in fashion for a long time. But it really feels strikingly fresh. The artist is as good with action as she is with breathtaking fantasy drama. Her use of blurred foreground and action has been tried by other people before to various degrees of success. McClaren manages to finesse the style in a way that gives the world a profound sense of depth.
With the events of the first part of the story already finished, it'll be interesting to see which direction Thompson takes the arc in. It's pretty romantic stuff. And it has quite an emotional weight to it. There's no question that Thompson is working with effortless and broad strokes. That doesn't make what she's putting on the page any less powerful. Given what happened, the second arc could be drastically different from the first. It will be interesting to see which direction she pushes it in, given that things will be dramatically different after the end of the sixth issue.
