Plastic: Death & Dolls #3 // Review
Edwin answers the door to find a couple of FBI agents there to talk with him. He thinks that they’re there to talk about what happened at the diner the previous night. They’re actually there to talk about a string of murders. He’s not going to tall them everything. He’s actually got kind of a lot to hide in Plastic: Death & Dolls #3. Writer Doug Wagner continues a psychological horror serial with artist Daniel Hillyard. The visual is graced with often garish color by Michelle Madsen. It’s a chilling enough look at a serial killer, but it lacks significant insight in its third issue.
There was a bit of a breakdown at the diner. It’s okay. Edwin’s fine now. Sort of. There IS the head of his mom that happens to be right next to the red sauce in the refrigerator, but he’s not going to tell the FBI agents about THAT. He’s just...he’s just disgusted that anyone would kill someone and leave the headless corpse just...lying around like that. It’s probably an interesting conversation to be having with a couple of FBI agents. After all...they ARE investigating a s string of murders. They’ll have questions for him.
Wagner is doing a sharp job of rendering a very complex and nuanced characters sketch. However, there isn't really a whole lot of depth to it. There is a profound look into the subtle fluctuations in the psych of a serial killer. However, there is enough distance from it to really gain much perspective on it. Thankfully, he's not over rendering the psychology behind it. But they really would need to be a little bit more of a perspective on what's going on in order for that to feel like it’s anything more than a presentation of a fractured monster of a man’s broken psyche.
The visuals have to work on a couple of different different levels. There is the obvious horror of the murder and dismemberment and all of that. But there's also a very surface level mundane day-to-day quality about the world in which all of this needs to exist. Hillyard does a remarkably vivid job of keeping it all very grounded in reality while also showing the horror what's going on. That being said, the lack of detail around the edges of the horror keeps it from really delivering the full reality of the horror. Perhaps it all feels just a bit too sanitary with all of the clean lines and such. Perhaps it's really needed. It's more of an ugly sketchiness in order to relate. Deliver the awfulness of what's going on.
Little gets delivered inside a single issue of this series. It difficult to really get a full perspective on what's going on. And so it ultimately feels like something is missing. And what's missing they actually be coming in issues to come. It certainly is difficult to put down. The that delivered here is delivered in a way that is guaranteed to grab the reader and push them through every single panel of every single page. Fun stuff. It'll be interesting to see if it actually amounts to anything in the long run.
Grade: A
