ALIAS #21
© 2003 Marvel Comics

Mania Grade: B
Authors: Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos, Mark Bagley, Al Vey, Dean White
Publisher: Marvel Comics/MAX
Price: $2.99

Related Links

0

ALIAS #21

By the end of the penultimate chapter of "The Underneath" which reintroduced both Jessica Drew, the original Spider-Woman, and Speedball, late of the New Warriors (remembered the one but not the other, didn't ya? Which one you remembered I'm sure tells a lot about you, somehow) I was all ready for the final installment of the story arc. I was sure that in 30 days, it would all come together with a bang.

And it did... kind of. A well-known fact about Brian Michael Bendis' story arcs is that he's great on the windup, good on the pitch, and iffy on the follow-through. If you were expecting a continuation of the baseball metaphor, forget it. I suffer from the same problem as Bendis namely, that the end doesn't always justify the means. Throughout "The Underneath," we've caught glimpses of the seedier side of the superhero biz kids tripping on a drug that gives them temporary superpowers; a superhero girl trapped in the hazy, drugged-out world of said kids; and so on. But also through it all, we had the sense that all our unanswered questions would be answered. We'd know why Mattie Franklin ended up in Jessica Jones' apartment that night. We'd find out who this group of druggies were. We'd discover exactly how it all started.

But we don't. Hell, by the end of this issue we don't even know where Jessica Drew has gotten off to. Or why Speedball Speedball, of all people would have a gig working with the police. There's also a bizarre yet extremely well illustrated sequence towards the beginning in which a semi-conscious Jessica imagines herself fighting the Defenders, in her old costume, after kissing a mysterious dark man. Isn't it customary to lay all the old questions to rest before raising new ones?

Lest anyone think I'm overcompensating for praising Bendis so highly the rest of the time, let me say that, despite all this, the issue is good. The resolution of Mattie Franklin's story may be a bit disappointing, but Gaydos' artwork breaks out of the typical "repeating panel" routine that a Bendis script so often inspires and "breaks out" is exactly the phrase for it. As if trying to match the aforementioned dream sequence illustrated by Bagley, Vey, and White, Gaydos pulls no punches Jessica's flight, for instance, is one of the best sequences this book has seen in a long while. And then there's his work on that coda, that perfect coda that Bendis has been saving up for just this moment. The scene that makes up for a whole lot of questions left hanging in the air. It's a feel-good moment in a series that, by and large, eschews feel-good moments in favor of hugely f***k-ed things. (That could almost be a direct quote, in fact.)

And then there's the promise of a secret origin issue next month. Damn. No wonder we keep coming back to this book even when it's not everything we'd hoped.