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| Title: | Veil |
| Contributors: | Greg Rucka Toni Fejzula |
| Publisher: | Dark Horse |
| Issue #: | 3 |
| Year: | 2014 |
| Pages: | 32 Pages |
| Age Rating: | 15+ (Violence, Gore, Adult Themes) |
| Story Grade: | F |
| Art Grade: | A |
Greg Rucka has a unique storytelling style in this book that is beginning to annoy the hell out of me. The storytelling style is overpowering Rucka's ability to expand on and explore the main theme of this book, or at least the theme as I have come to see it; abuses of power. It's too bad, because abuse of power is such a fun theme to explore.
We are three issues into the book, at the end of this book, we are given glimpses into what is happening, but not even a panel as to why it's happening. We know who people are, but we aren't told "why" they are, what their true role is. For instance, the antagonist, we know he is the antagonist, but we don't know why he is what he is. What is his motivation. What is his relationship with Veil, with the occult, with mob/corp/group or whatever it is that he is betraying in the few panels Rucka chooses to dedicate to that sub-plot. It is frustrating as a reader to have to sift through all of this too-little-information-to-care or in most cases just non-information to try and make sense of why any of this is happening in the first place. All this does is leave us with shallow characters that neither love or hate. All the reader cares about getting through the last panel so he or she can read a comic that had characters they do care about.
Don't get me wrong here, in Issue #1 and #2, I care for Veil. And I was left for wanting more in a good way. But now in this issue, the book went too far, crossed a point in the story where an event of such magnitude has happened and I am left asking, "Why do I care?" I ask this because I don't know here. I don't know him. I know this organization he betrays. I don't know the world they are in. I don't know them, therefore I am not emotionally attached. Therefore I don't care.
I was really hoping that this issue would begin explaining more of the why. The first issue introduced Veil and her rescuer (one of my favorite of the characters in the series). The second issue introduced the antagonist, and ended with her rescuer running off handcuffed (and now it looks as though we will never hear from the rescuer again). The third issue opens Pandora's Box and all hell breaks loose. And all we really are left with is shallow characters that we don't care about any more.
This books make the whole series feel like reading the first three chapters of Stephen King's book "The Stand", or any of his books for that matter, then jumping to the last two chapters of the book and calling it good. Yeah, it can save a lot of time, especially when dealing with a 1200 page book, but a lot of content is missing when you write a story in this style and it deprives the reader of a great experience.
To say I am sorely disappointed, is a complete understatement. I had high hopes for this story, and Issue #3 crushed those hopes like an ant under a bootheel attached to a menacing child's foot.
I wish I could say Toni Fejzula's artwork was the saving grace for this book, but alas even Fejzula's stylistic Grade A quality art doesn't save this book in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I would buy Fejzula's work in a heartbeat, so I am in no way digging on Fejzula's work. Stunning. Stellar. Superb. Spectacular. Or simply pick whatever adjective you like to describe AWESOME! That is Fejzula's art.
Fejzula's movement from panel to panel, use of camera angles, especially for some P.O.V. references and his ability to tell a story with his art, without a single word printed on the page, is great. His waxy style is full of texture and reflective surfaces that just strums the eye orgasm nerve in my mind. It truly is eye candy for my soul.
One of my favorite obscure references in Fejzula's art is the rats; Red Rat, Blue Rat. It's a nice little Alice in Wonderland reference, or for those of you not verses in the tales by author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (A.K.A. Lewis Carroll), then you might get the Matrix reference (Red Pill, Blue Pill).
So with all of that said, I have graded this book a D-. I will be honest, Fejzula's art, Grade A choice prime, was the only thing saving this book from an F.
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