Written by
Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean
Phillips
One
of the most important parts of the film noir is the femme fatale. The woman that gets the hero mixed up in
everything and inevitably leads to his downfall. Normally,
this is just a part of the formula that made up noir. Fatale turns the concept on its head with one
simple question: what if the femme fatale didn’t want to be the femme fatale,
and was just cursed to be one?
Fatale
is the story of a man whose godfather dies, which leaves him with one of his
unpublished manuscripts, only to shortly be mixed up with Josephine and
attacked by mysterious men…while flashing back to Josephine, who’s the same age
in the past. While the first volume took
place in the 1950s with the godfather, this volume skips forward to 70s Hollywood. Miles is a wannabe actor who’s only starred
in one good movie, only to find himself on the wrong side of a cult and seeking
sanctuary with Josephine, who’s secluded herself. But the cult is also after her.
First
things first: the continuity issue. Do
you need to read the first volume? Yes
and no. Yes, for the present day
overarching plot, you do. For the story
in the 70s, I certainly don’t think you’d get as much out of it coming in
here. At the same time, the time-skip means
it’s a new set of characters and new plot which at least wraps up at the end of
the volume. I’d say it’s a fairly
friendly jumping-on point.
The
main twist of Fatale is its combination of crime stories with supernatural
elements. The cult here isn’t just a
cult, they’re really working for a demon.
It’s certainly a bit jarring, but most surprisingly, it doesn’t break
the atmosphere. The dark, gritty crime
stories still work even if the villain is a Cthulhu-esque demon. It’s a blending of genres that Sean Phillips’
art manages to make work. Everything is stylized
like a noir movie, but as demons appear, they come off as almost
Mignola-esque. They look wrong in this world,
but that’s what makes their presence interesting.
It’s
impressive that the tone the first volume sets in the 50s manages to stay
across 20 years. There’s quite a
difference going from the noir-fuelled world of corrupt cops and reporters to a
Hollywood ruled by sex, drugs, and cults.
Keeping the narration around helps, and Josephine provides the link. We get more of her character here, too,
including the confirmation fairly early on that she mysteriously attracts men
to her. There’s only so much given here,
of course. At the end, we’ve gotten maybe
one piece of the puzzle, along with some more of her character development, but
there’s still enough missing that makes you want to read more. It is worrisome that it’s only 40 years until
the flashbacks catch up to modern day, but then, we’ll have to see where the
series go before it’s worth worrying about completely.
The
Devil’s Business is easily as strong as the first volume. If you want a noir story with some twists, go
there. This is where things are really
beginning go places, taking the noir genre and twisting it more to fit into
different decades and plots, along with starting to reveal where the overall
plot is going. Fatale certainly has my
interest, and I eagerly await future storylines.
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