Reviewer: Tim Stevens
Story Title: Good Offenses
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colored by: Carrie Strachan
Lettered by: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Scott Dunbier
Publisher: Wildstorm Comics
So this is it. The issue where Holden Carver catches up with the rest of us and finds out just how outplayed he has been. We’ve known it was coming for the past few months. Miss Misery was working with Tao, setting up our conflicted hero for a fall. Holden clearly was not the master manipulator on the level of his current boss (Tao) or his previous one (Lynch) and he’d have to be to squirm his way out of this trap. Holden might have another trick up his sleeve, but that seems unlikely at best. Thus, we are left with what Brubaker has been building to all season: Tao v. Lynch. Sure, Holden was built up as the protagonist in Season 1, but by now it should be clear that he is merely another pawn in the game between these two.
Sleeper Season 2, much like Season 1, has been good on an issue by issue basis, but much more impressive when read in chunks. However, with the end in sight, Brubaker has stopped building the big picture and now turned to revealing it. Thus, the pace is accelerated and issue 10 is one of the more satisfying single installments of either volume.
Sadly, beyond that, words fail me a bit. This book is as strong as it’s always been, the art as powerful in its depiction of a world that is so internally shadowing that it cannot help but bleed onto the page. Brubaker’s script keeps pace with the art, never showing away from the brutality that these men and women deal out, without hesitation, upon those they hate and love, in equal measure. But that’s been the case since this book started and I’m nut sure how many more times I can subject you to it. So, suffice to say, this is a good book.
