DARKMINDS: MACROPOLIS Vol. 3 #3

The third installment in the series continues to improve on the original

By Tony Whitt     July 14, 2002

Special Investigations Unit Agent Tedashi Nagawa isn't having the greatest of evenings. Right after being honored with the Macropolis "Man of the Year" award, he's embroiled in a new murder investigation, and the murderer seems interested in keeping Nagawa on a short leash. Meanwhile, Nagawa's cyborg partner Akane Nakiko has been taken by the SIU Tech Division. She thinks it's to check the reason for her collapse earlier in the evening, but she soon discovers that they're behind it, and for a very chilling reason...

I'm beginning to think that Chris Sarracini and the folks over at Dreamwave can do no wrong. Not only have they managed to turn TRANSFORMERS from a fun bit of '80s nostalgia into one of the hottest comics properties of the year, they've given a real edge to DARKMINDS, a series which seemed doomed to oblivion after the last tepid installment. Two months ago I raved over the first issue of this series - the strong writing and characterization, the high-quality artwork, the fast pace - and this issue is no exception.

Sarracini's already improved on one aspect of the previous series that was sorely lacking: the characterization. Nagawa used to be one of your stereotypical manga-anime cops, for instance, while Nakiko was virtually interchangeable with any number of female cyborgs from such films as GHOST IN THE SHELL and so on. It's hard to pin down exactly what makes them so much more alive in this series, but it could be because they're both put into personal peril. Nagawa's been drawn into a game of cat and mouse with an unknown serial killer, and the very stakes of the game make him far more vulnerable, as well as much more accessible. The scene in which he first enters the crackhouse and reacts to the horrific sight of the drug addicts there defines him far better than any scene from the previous two series does, as does the moment in which he finds the latest victim. He's still the typical manga-anime cop, but at least these touches humanize him. Nakiko's plight does even more to humanize her. The scene in which she's told what's happening to her by a tech who refuses to address her by name is a chilling moment - all of a sudden we've come to care about this character in a way that was nearly impossible before.

Were it not for Jo and Christina Chen's artwork, though, even Sarracini's script might have lost some momentum. From the surprising opening shot, in which we "pan" slowly out from a thug's metal teeth to discover that he's a drug dealer justifying his actions to his young son, to the frenetic final images of Nagawa falling to an uncertain fate, the artwork pulls you in and keeps you moving. It takes a few more passes through this book to see just how intricate the Chens' work really is, much in the same way that a fast-moving anime film requires several sittings to see how much detail the animators have put into the background.

Same cause same effect, really - DARKMINDS: MACROPOLIS comes closer to being anime caught on paper than any number of titles out there professing to do the same thing. And much like the rest of Dreamwave Productions' output, it's the sort of book that makes you wish thirty days could go by at as fast a pace as this story does.

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