Reviewed by Scott J Grunewald.
Created and written by Brian Michael Bendis & Marc
Andreyko
Illustrated by Brian Michael Bendis
Published in 1999 by Image Comics
Cleveland
needed help. In the 1930s, the midst of the great depression, corruption
and crime ran rampant, and there was little difference between the police
and the criminals. Enter Eliot Ness, fresh from his victory over Al Capone
and eager to do for Cleveland what he did for Chicago. True to form, Ness,
Cleveland's new Safety Director, went right to work, quickly earning the
ire of the local gangsters and crooked cops. But when headless torsos
started to wash up onto the shores of Lake Erie, and the world got a cold
hard look at its first serial killer, Ness's war on crime and corruption
was going to have to wait.
Sound fantastic? What if I told you that it was true? In the mid 1930s body parts really did start washing up on the shores of Erie, and Ness really was instructed to find the killer. And as history will tell you, the killer was never found. Well, he was never found officially. Bendis and Andreyko tell you what "really" happened.
While Eliot Ness is our star, fictional detectives Sam Simon and Walter Myrlo are our guides through this grim and bloody true crime story, and Bendis and Andreyko spend a lot of time letting us look inside their heads. Sam and Walt aren't just props to get us from one point in the story to then next, they are the reason that we want to read the story. The true events of TORSO set a fascinating framework to the story, but it is the human interaction that keeps us enthralled. In fact, the interaction between these two characters is so vital to the story that it makes some of the final chapters events so painful to witness that even when you know what's going to happen, you find yourself wishing that it wouldn't. Raging against the inevitable is an obvious sign that Bendis and Andreyko were doing their jobs, and you will do a lot of raging, trust me.
While there is a lot about TORSO that is typical Bendis, Marc Andreyko adds a deeper layer to Bendis' usual hard boiled dialogue and brings the script to emotionally charged heights. Bendis has always been a natural writer of dialogue. He knows how people think and speak, and knows how to work those rhythms into a comic book. However, he's always relied on long moments of exposition and internal monologues to let us inside his characters head. This works wonderfully when its done with his other crime masterpieces JINX and GOLDFISH, but it would just seem out of place and forced within the fast paced and image heavy TORSO. The fact that character development in TORSO is almost totally based on vocal interaction and the skillful and well-timed dialogue suggests Andreyko's more refined and subtle touch. Anyone who wants to see Andreyko's skillful ability of conveying the most information with the least amount of dialogue needs only look at his gothic tinged Peter-Pan-as-Undead-Killer creator owned series THE LOST, published by Chaos.
The art is where this series really gets interesting, however. Bendis has always had his bag of tricks to add to the gritty and realistic look of his art; the use of photocopied pictures as backgrounds, real models, and dense blacks with simple, speed line free figures, but he really lets them rip here. Bendis keeps your eyes moving, and the pages turning, with ever shifting perspectives, and jarring and chaotic panel movements. Bendis isn't happy with you simply reading this comic; he wants you involved, and he uses every trick he can find to do so.
My only real complaints are the speed with which you finish the book. Each issue has been a bulky 48 pages, but I'd breeze through it in a matter of minutes. It wasn't until I sat down and read the entire series in one sitting that it all came together as well as it did. However, I think that's less of a weakness on this comic's part, but more of a sign that comic formats need to change. TORSO needed to be told in one sitting. It needed and deserved to be told in an uninterrupted manner. Great books like these only illustrate that the comic industry's inability to grow and evolve is one of the many things that are going wrong within comics today. But, that's a topic for another day
TORSO may be a little heavy for new comic readers, and the dark artwork and unconventional lay out certainly wont help, but it fits very nicely within the short list of books that proves that comics are not a childish or low brow medium. A brilliant script and inventive layout and pacing make this easily one of the best comics on the market today, and easily the best work that Bendis and Andreyko have ever done.
Strongly recommended.
Trade paperback available in 2000, published by Image Comics. Individual issues available now from all good comic shops.
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