Written by: Peter Milligan
Art by: Javier Pulido
Colored by: Javier Pulido
Lettered by: Clem Robins
Editor: Karen Bergin
Publisher: Vertigo
This is a story that gets in your head and in your bones and just settles there. Unnerving and difficult to shake, it is a morality play on the nature of the cycle of violence that you less read and more witness.
Pulido is back on fill in duties, which is a good thing. I love Chiang’s work on the title and am glad he’s the main artist, but Pulido’s style (particularly his coloring) his very appealing and unique while still matching the tone of the book. So, if we have to have a fill in artist, it is nice to see Pulido is the one pinch hitting. The highlight artwise is when hostage Amir Barot escapes and pulls off his hood to find he is almost literally in his own backyard. It’s not Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is not the Abu Ghraib prison, it is downtown Los Angeles. The site of yonder freeway utterly dwarfing the frightened and confused Barot is a great bit of artistic symbolism that achieves results without beating you over the head with the message.
Really, the only criticism I would offer is that it does nothing to advance the story of Christopher Chance. I have no problem with him taking a back seat in certain stories. Last month, for example, he was only a supporting player. However, last month’s issue still revealed another layer to our protagonist. This time out, there is no such reveal or evolution offered to Chance. The issue does not suffer for it, but the overall arc of the book does. I guess that this close to the end of Human Target’s run, I just want as much character development as possible.
