Written by: Greg Rucka
Art by: Michael Lark
Publisher: Image
23 issues in, will I finally have found an issue of Lazarus I didn’t like?
Okay that’s a really dumb opener. Let me start over.
Oh, hey, look, it’s me, back to tell you how amazing Lazarus is! Again! At this point, perhaps I should be handing off the duties of reviewing this book to someone else–perhaps another writer would be able to provide a different perspective on the book. Or at least write a review that is somewhat different than those I’ve been writing for the past, what, eight months? I don’t know. I think it’s been a bit longer than that because of the release schedule this book is on. Oh well.
This may come as a surprise, to, oh, exactly zero people, but I loved Lazarus #23. It was the best book I read this week by a long shot, and since Deadly Class is on hiatus I have to imagine it won’t have any real competition for the rest of the month. Not to say I don’t like other comics, because I do. But in terms of the ongoing series I’m reading right now? Nothing really touches the work that Greg Rucka and Michael Lark are doing on Lazarus. Over the course of 23 issues, they’ve crafted a set of characters and a world that I am 1000% invested in. I’m more invested in the world of Lazarus than I am in the real world.
So Michael Lark does his thing on art, Greg Rucka knows when to get out of his way, but then comes back into the fold and writes some truly amazing characters. I think that sentence about sums up my review of every issue of this book so far, and nothing’s changed. For a lot of books, a stagnation of quality isn’t great, but Lazarus is achieving such great heights in every issue that you won’t find me complaining about it.
The bottom line is that I love this book a whole lot, so go buy it. Both hardcovers are out at this point and they should just about catch you up. They’re also really nice hardcovers. All the issues are available digitally too, and I’m pretty sure a bunch of them are under cover price. The singles are out there, but may be hard to find/expensive. The trades also exist, and being an Image book, they’re all fairly priced. I don’t really care how you do it (though I would prefer you didn’t torrent the book), but you really should be reading Lazarus. I’ll be writing reviews until everyone is, even if the book ends, so maybe you just want me to shut up.
So yeah, Lazarus is still f**king fantastic. Any other stupid questions?
