Written by: Andy Diggle, Angela Cruickshank
Art by: Andrea Mutti
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
As of late, there has been a unfulfilled niche in the world of comic books. The same genre your grandmother is tuned into every week. No, I’m not talking about Fox News. I’m talking about Murder She Wrote and Law and Order esque realistic detective stories. Crime stories without Batmen where the only supervillians are the 1% who can seemingly get away with anything. I’m glad to say that Control is a promising new series that fulfills that niche.
Control is fast paced detective thriller taking place in the seedy underbelly of Washington DC. Crime and murder is a regular occurrence here, but when cops turn up dead and Washington’s elite political class seems to be involved, things get irregular.
First thing I want to talk about regarding this book is the art. The art fits the theme of the book really well. It’s dark and gritty and Andrea Mutti takes no shame in showing the dirt and grime of the city. The art sets up the mood quite nicely, which is a good thing because the writing moves too fast to bother with that. Several pivotal moments occur in the short 20 or so pages of the book, character die, new characters are introduced, and various revelations occur. While the speed is something that has it’s benefits of keeping the plot interesting and turning the book into a real page-turner, I do feel like something was lost in the pace. That something is character development.
After reading the entire book, i still don’t really know what kind of person the lead Kate Burnham is or what kind of person her new partner is. How well does Kate and her new partners personality fit together? I have no idea if they even like each other or hate each other. Honestly they seem completely indifferent to each other. The partner aspect is the most important part of hard-boiled detective books, so it’s a shame that it was completely ignored in this first issue. Almost every dialogue is used to move the story forward or give crucial exposition, very little is just characters having a normal conversation.
Overall, Control #1 is a great start to this series. It sets up an interesting villain, an intriguing murder mystery, and it shows off some great art. Andy Diggle focuses the book too much on it’s fast-paced plot that he loses sight of his characters, but with five more issues to go, i have high hopes for this series.
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