Review: Grifter #1 by Nathan Edmondson and Cafu

Reviews

Grifter #1

Written by Nathan Edmondson

Art by Cafu, Jason Gorder, and Andrew Dalhouse

 

In the new DCU relaunch pretty much all of the Wildstorm properties were re-imagined to fit in with the current direction of the company, and rarely has that been more evident than Nathan Edmondson and Cafu’s Grifter #1.  This issue is a hard reboot of the character – formerly one of Wildstorm’s most recognizable.  He was a super cocky super soldier whose lack of aging prevented him from growing up and he was constantly hunted by aliens, the government he abandoned, or both. Of course, that’s just to the Wildstorm fan, though.  To most of those reading this today, he was a 90s attitude character with guns, attitude and little else to define him.  Can Edmondson beat the prevailing attitude without utterly changing the core concept?

 

Well, it turns out, no, he can’t.  The premise Edmondson comes up with here is that Grifter is a former special ops agent who disappeared and became an actual grifter of the rich.  For some reason, some Aliens abduct him, he’s the only one who can escape them, and the only one who can hear them hiding in human bodies.  Adding to the drama, he can’t really be sure which human the voices are coming from until he attacks them and, to everyone else, it looks like he’s just lost his mind and is killing people.

 

While this shares some attributes with the early issues of Daemonites in Wildcats, it’s actually got more in common with the original Rom: Space Knight series.  Nothing is made of his incredible aim and skill yet, so it seems all that survived of the original take is some attitude and the mask.  As I’m (the rather rare) fan of the original, it’s disappointing to see such a departure for the character, but all of the other character development has time to be added on, as do the requisite skills.  What we do get is an interesting, if familiar, set up for the character.  A highly skilled soldier and cheat killing innocents in the DCU is going to attract attention of a superhero sort, and Grifter’s promise of handling that attention, along with the attention of his former Special Ops handlers and regular law enforcement all combine to make this a real high tension comic with an absolute ton going on to keep it interesting.

 

This isn’t to say the issue is perfect.  Grifter’s putting on the mask comes absolutely out of nowhere with no foreshadowing.  We can infer that he used the mask when he was part of Special Ops, but, really, that’s far from clear and it feels like it’s here to remind the reader “Oh, hey, you’re supposed to recognize this guy.”  It’s just a cheap way to do it. The other major issue is the weird 17-days, 17-minutes, 17-seconds narrative device, which mixes with some unreliable narrator issues, and some non-linear storytelling to, well, become something of a mess.  The main gist of the story is simple enough to follow, so this device feels tacked on to make the book clever and instead just makes it feel pointlessly convoluted.

 

The art, however, is the opposite.  Coming off a stellar Thunder Agents run, is clear and expressive.  The energy presented by the action scenes feels more out of an action thriller than a superhero epic, and, well the Grifter mask is just a really cool character design.    Mixing it with the tension of the script and the noir elements, well, even if it was out of nowhere, the mask was a cool moment.

 

At the end of the day, Grifter is a lot of what I wanted from the relaunch.  A lot happens in the issue, making it worth my money, with an interesting plot hook and a likable lead character.  It isn’t pure superhero comics, but that’s not a bad thing, and where it fails, it fails with ambition and drama, which is perfectly acceptable.  I’m glad to see Edmondson’s superhero work this good from day 1.  There’s a lot of room to grow for this talented writer, who’s being paired already with arguably one of the top ten artists in superhero comics.  7/10 and I’ll definitely be back for more.

 

 

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.