Brubaker recovers very nicely. And he lets Phillips go outside. Phillips’s outdoors art is always lovely.
There’s a surprise in the issue–or two, but the second one is somewhat immaterial–and Brubaker did a great job setting it up. It makes perfect sense and is only possible because he kept switching the perspective around through the last few issues. Can’t get too close when one of your characters is completely different than you’ve set him or her up.
The issue ends the first arc and has frame set in the modern day. It’s a mistake. Brubaker reminds the reader he never set up the modern ground situation in the flashback. Actually, he did everything he could to make it seem totally impossible for the characters to move into these new positions on the board.
Still, Fatale succeeds big time.
Brubaker just needs to justify the framing character a bit.
CREDITS
Death Chases Me, Chapter Five; writer, Ed Brubaker; artist, Sean Phillips; colorist, Dave Stewart; publisher, Image Comics.
