Sinister Dexter: The Taking of the Michael

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Sinister Dexter: The Taking of the Michael (Rebellion, 2016).


A little over two years ago, I raved about the return and resurrection of Sinister Dexter, and the series has not done a darn thing to reward my loyalty until now. If you're unfamiliar with this series, I covered its peaks and chasms in that review and won't go into them again. Much.

The problem is that Dan Abnett - who, in fairness, seems to be writing a dozen other stories for a dozen publishers and may not have the time to devote to keeping this series vital - often falls back on comedy and cliche in Sin Dex, and that's amusing to a point but what works best for the series is taking the protagonists dead seriously. Donald Westlake could juggle both jet-black melodrama and lighthearted capers, but he used different protagonists in his stories. Ramone and Finnigan work best when they are frighteningly efficient at their jobs, and when their jobs are really, really serious. But after that triumphant 12-week return in 2013, a handful of subsequent stories were back in the safe arms of gentle parody and mild comedy, throwing away the incredible opportunity that came with the "Witless Protection" story.

But now, oh. We're four weeks into "The Taking of the Michael," written by Abnett and illustrated by Patrick Goddard, and it's remarkable. Ray and Finny are dangerous, ruthless, and completely horrifying in a way that they're rarely depicted. In episode two of the story, one of two bent witness protection agents arranges for our heroes to be abducted in broad daylight, and that turns out to be an awfully bad error. I love the way that Goddard draws the violence. It's depicted with cold, brutal realism and just left my eyes popping.

And I am completely loving the structure of this story. It's told in flashback, as two detectives investigate the aftermath of a huge gunfight on the deck of a yacht. It belongs to longtime series villain Moses Tanenbaum. There are many bodies, many chalk outlines. Each episode opens with a few more words from their investigation, a few more clues as to what will happen as the story unfolds. We're not sure who has died, but each episode shows more of the small supporting cast meeting grisly ends before Ray and Finny even make it to the ship. The second federal agent's wallet has been found. It's possible that she's among the fatalities.

For that matter, our heroes may not have made it out of this one alive. Sure, they probably did, but if any comic in history has ever made readers genuinely question the safety of its characters, it's 2000 AD. The brutality and shock of this story is strong enough that I'm perfectly prepared to place one bet on this story quietly concluding the long-running series (almost twenty years!) with the revelation of the leads' deaths, while also placing a second bet on them making it out alive and showing up in another four-part satire next summer. Fingers crossed for the former, but whichever way, I am absolutely enjoying the daylights out of the uncertainty, and reading each episode with relish. Highly recommended.

(Clicking the link in the image will take you to 2000 AD's online shop, where you can purchase the issue that begins the story. PDFs of these issues were provided by the publisher for the purpose of review. If you'd like to see your books (typically comics or detective fiction) featured here, send me an email.)

Sinister Dexter: Witless Protection

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Sinister Dexter: Witless Protection (Rebellion, 2013).


I was startled when I heard the news that Sinister Dexter, a seventeen year-old action series written by Dan Abnett and drawn by dozens, was coming back after what seemed like an understated and overdue finale. I thought for sure that beast had been put out of our misery. Then I read that John Burns would be in charge of art duties and, for the first time since the series should have ended in 2005, I looked forward to the new episodes. John Burns painting Sinister Dexter is so obvious a pairing that everybody was amazed that it had not happened previously.

Sinister Dexter is an occasionally lighthearted and pun-filled melodrama about two gunmen for hire in the ugly, futuristic megalopolis of Downlode, a crime-ridden nightmare that sits atop what's today central Europe, and which is controlled by warring underworld factions. Over its first several years, when the series was a semi-regular in the pages of the anthology 2000 AD, we met a huge cast of characters and followed several overlapping and complex subplots. Rather than linger on its fall from grace, suffice it to say that the last essential Sin Dex tale was told in 2005 - I do mean essential; the epic "...and death shall have no dumb minions" is a must-read for anybody who likes good fiction in this medium - and it has been treading creative water ever since. Mercifully, it seemed to end six years later. Nobody mourned it or clamored for its return.

I wonder whether Abnett knew that he'd be writing for John Burns, because the latest twelve-week run of this series plays very much to this artist's strengths. Burns, to my mind, doesn't have a very deep bag of tricks, but what he has, he uses better than most anybody. He doesn't seem to have updated his reference material since the 1970s, and so the best of his work - possibly the really fun Bendatti Vendetta from the mid-2000s - has a deep sensibility of the 1970s to it. The urban grime of Times Square, the squealing tires of action-packed cop shows, ugly fat men with bad moustaches, and, when a little playful sexiness is needed - it isn't, not in these particular pages, but it often was in some of Nikolai Dante - it comes with a late-period Carry On slide whistle.

With that in mind, this new adventure picks up some time after we last saw our heroes Finnigan Sinister, Ramone Dexter, and Dex's girlfriend Tracy Weld. After dismantling one of their enemies' huge criminal operations, they've been taken into witness protection and moved off-planet to a sprawling frontier world called Generica, which had been introduced some years previously. Finny is relocated to a city that, perfectly, looks exactly like Pittsburgh in a 1974 Quinn Martin production for CBS. You can almost hear the bow-chicka-bow as gigantic cars with unbelievable suspension fishtail across wet pavement.

It's almost as though Abnett scripted this adventure in direct response to fan complaints about its six years of meandering. The cast is cleaved down, the subplots start from scratch, and while the heroes still have the seemingly-immortal kingpin Moses Tanenbaum as their main villain, we're actually given a specific reason why they need to hunt this guy down. It's a convoluted and suspiciously convenient reason, not to mention full of sci-fi implausibility, but this time, I'm actually willing to buy it.

The twelve-week run comprises three stories, the first two painted by Burns. In the opening four-parter, Finny looks for work in his new home, discovers that Tannenbaum has also been relocated to Generica, and decides to find Dex and Tracy, who are in some other state. Doing so, he runs afoul of the witness protection agency and an old crime boss from Downlode. In the second, things get majestically awesome as he makes a deal with the devil and takes a job with his old enemy to get the funds to cross the country. Things don't go well.

This second story is in the running for one of Dan Abnett's best stories ever, as it becomes apparent that Finny is teetering closer than ever to a breakdown. He's become the narrator of his story, talking to himself in a sarcastic approximation of tough-guy fiction. Strikingly, he's aware that he's doing it, but he can't stop, and it isn't played for laughs. As if this story wasn't bold enough already, it then climaxes in an unbelievable explosion of meticulously-crafted violence. Finnigan's ruthless killing prowess had previously only been depicted either as black comedy or as a heroic talent. This time, we see him through different eyes and, for the first time ever in the series, he's absolutely terrifying. It is a bold and stunning choice, certain to leave readers wondering whether we can ever go back to the silly quips and puns when we see that this brutal, remorseless murderer is capable of such carefully-choreographed butchery.

This leads me to speculate on where things could possibly go next. The third and last of the new stories sees old hand Simon Davis back on art duties. For the first time ever, putting the great Davis back on Sin Dex, where he had previously been the shining best of all its many artists, manages to disappoint. In part that's because in my daydreams, Davis is diligently working on episodes twenty-three to twenty-five of a six-month Ampney Crucis Investigates story (quiet at the back, it could happen), and in part because Burns is just so damn good that I don't want substitutes. But Davis brings his best and the resulting three-part story, checking in on Dex and Tracy, is certainly really great despite my silly grumbling. As foreshadowed, Dex and Tracy are doing quite fine without Finny in their lives. They've begun their lives together at last, and simply don't need the violence of Downlode and Moses Tannenbaum any more, but of course, they're going to get it...

It's like this: Abnett, Burns, and Davis have done the impossible. They've taken an aging disappointment, slow on its feet and full of fat, and turned it into the can't miss title of the summer. Week twelve came too soon; when Sin Dex returns in 2014, I honestly hope that it's for a lot more than three months. If you'd told me a year ago I'd be saying that, I'd have said you were drunk. It's that impressive. Go buy episode one by clicking the image above.

Sinister Dexter: Eurocrash

Here's how this works. I read a book or two and tell you about them and try not to get too long-winded. This time, a review of Sinister Dexter: Eurocrash (volume 4) (Rebellion, 2009).



Having spoken of 2001's episodes of Sinister Dexter in recent installments of Thrillpowered Thursday, let's dive back into the duo's recent past and the new collected edition of "Eurocrash." Like "I Say Hello," this is a straight-up Sin Dex classic. The collection starts with a couple of short stories and then dives right in to the exceptional, epic-length storyline in which crime queenpin Demi Octavo's hold over her city slips out from under her, leading to blood in the streets. By the time it's over, the balance of power in Downlode is changed forever, and Sinister and Dexter go their separate ways, each determined to ferret out the mysterious parties behind the carnage, and to never see each other again.

Which makes it incredibly hard to understand why, when you turn the page, the deadly duo are working together as a team.

Rebellion's line of reprints is easily the best in the industry right now. They do a laudable job 49 times out of 50, picking great material and presenting it in a standout format, on glossy paper, with matte-finish covers and typically some very nice extras. Well, their skimpy little creator biography paragraphs could use a little work, but otherwise it's a terrific reprint line. That's what makes this book so darned hard to understand. For some utterly baffling reason, the collection skips over twenty-four freaking episodes of the series.

As screw-ups go, this one ranks up there. The whole phase of the series when it was retitled Downlode Tales is excised, as well as two one-offs that ran alongside Eurocrash's earliest episodes and set up characters who would reappear within the bigger epic. What you got in those 24 episodes, apart from some very nice artwork by Simon Davis, Greg Staples and Chris Weston, among others, were some critical continuing subplots, the return of Billie Octavo and the deaths of several major recurring players, including both Bunkum and Nervous Rex. Oh yeah, and the whole point, the whole payoff, of the vengeful promises of the last two pages of "Eurocrash." At least Monty Python gave us a "scene missing" screen; this book just hopes you're not reading very closely.

I've never said this about a Rebellion book before, but this is one to avoid. Do not buy this book. They should pulp every copy they can get their hands on and issue a second edition with "Lone Shark," "The Ass Kickers," "Scrubbers" and "The Whack Pack" following Eurocrash. The fifth Sin Dex collection should have "City on Fire" and "Lock and 'Lode" and then the four stories which conclude this book: "Exit Wounds," "Observations," "Mission to Mangapore" and "Life Behind Bars," and probably a couple of other episodes after them. Otherwise, neither this nor the next book are worth purchasing. Speaking as a huge fan of the publisher and a pretty big fan of Sin Dex, I wish I didn't have to say that.

(Excerpted from Thrillpowered Thursday.)