Revelations

I’ve been meaning to get to this review, but with the holidays approaching, well, you know busy this time of year is.

Dark Horse Comics unites two of my all time faves in writer Paul Jenkins and Artist Huberto Ramos. Jenkins and Ramos worked on the now defunct Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man and the current Spectacular Spider-Man (I stopped buying this title after Ramos moved on).

Revalations is the story of Charlie Northern, ace detective for Scotland Yard. An old friend, Cardinal Marcel LeClair, approaches Charlie to investigate the death of Father William Richleau. Richleau plummets from an open window to his death. In his hand, he holds a coin, and from the darkness emerges a man spewing Latin looking to stab the already dead priest.

Charlie decides to help his old friend and has his investigation interfered with at every turn by the bad guy in the story, Toscianni. It seems that Toscianni is the head of some secret society that is up to no good.

With the recent onset of movies dealing with Catholicism and secret societies ( e.g. The DaVinci Code), the setting for this story is not the hook for me. As previously mentioned, Jenkins is a great writer and Ramos an incredible artist. It is about the characters rather than the topic. Sure, it’s a good murder mystery, but the story is what grabs you. Nothern is having a “crisis of faith”. He doesn’t believe in God anymore or the Catholic Church. His friend, a Father in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church, comes to him for help. Northern comes to Marcel’s aid not because of the church, but their friendship. And it is no wonder that Charlie has some issues. A serial rapist killed his mother and father.

Jenkins wit is outstanding. Northern is not only a skeptical conspiracy theorist, but a merciless wiseacre. Great storytelling.

The art is awesome. I will admit, the middle-aged lead character looks a lot like Peter Parker, but that doesn’t detract from the story or the illustrations, at least for me. That is why I like Ramos. It is the way he draws his characters. He has a very cartoony style. No realism here.

This story is definitely a mature title. The language is at times very rough, and the scenes depicted within this book are often gruesome or adult in nature.

Still, overall it is a great story and a great work of art. There are two issues left in the series, and it will be interesting to see how Jenkins wraps this one up.