Lazarus Could Be This Year's Fatale: Addictive, Compelling and Beautiful

Lazarus #1Written by Greg RuckaArt by Michael LarkGrade: A+

Retailers who have been consistently selling out of sensational Image books like Fatale and Saga might want to up their orders a little on Lazarus; having sold out the first issue at Diamond Comics Distributors the day after release, the book is shaping up already to be one that could repeat that feat time and time again. That's because #1 was the best debut issue I've read all year--a textured and well-paced story whose writer and artist, both with a handful of best-sellers and accolades under their belts, are both in top form. One of the hardest things to do in all of comic books is to write a great single issue. The serialized magazine format makes it incredibly easy to write a decent or good issue and leave the greatness to the overarching story, challenging your readers very little but also not giving them too much back for their trouble, frankly. We're so used to it at this point that when a truly great single issue comes along, it's a splash of cold water in the face. Lazarus #1 certainly accomplishes that. We're introduced to Forever Carlyle, the genetically-engineered "enforcer" of a wealthy and powerful family who kill with impunity in a post-governmental world where the wealthy control plots of land, where serfs operate in service of the family in exchange for allowances of food and presumably housing. Her problem? She feels guilty when she kills people--and since she has to kill people a lot, this is painful for her. And since her family doesn't really care about her pain, but wants to make sure she keeps right on doing what she does, the series' central conflict begins to take shape. Without being shown affection, her psychologist says, she could become unstable and unreliable--a functionally-indestructible human being with no particular allegiance to anyone and a significant amount of dangerous combat training. There's the dichotomy of the soldier versus the commanding officer at play here, too, as her pretty-boy brother in an expensive suit barks orders at her to commit multiple murder in retaliation for a crime about which they know almost nothing and cannot possibly be certain they'll have the right guy even if they go through with it. "Send a message," he says, not particularly concerned with the moral implications of such a message. It falls to Michael Lark to sell Forever as a character and as an action star, and he does both. Her body language throughout the story speaks volumes, and the action sequence that begins the story is smartly choreographed and shows off both her skills and, with an on-the-nose flourish, why the series is called "Lazarus" anyway. Lark is a strong draftsman, but as a visual storyteller is where he really shines. Forever ("Eve" for short) is a coiled spring for most of the issue, and it's done subtly, quietly, without the dramatic and obvious posing that many artists would use to communicate that state of mind. I haven't felt this good about a single-issue comic book since Geoff Johns's Green Lantern finale a month or two back--and that had a decade's worth of baggage that it was carrying with it, deftly being dealt with along the way. Lazarus builds a near-instant visceral, emotional connection with the reader that (not in any way to belittle the other work) relies on craft rather than history and so attacks you intellectually and emotionally from a very different direction to achieve the same results. Speaking with ComicBook.com about Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether last month, Rucka teased a little bit about Lazarus: "Lazarus is very much a comic about the destination. There is an endpoint to the series in mind–it's an ongoing series but it will end," he said. "There is an ending for it and when it does end ideally it will be the ending that the reader feels was inevitable, was the ending that was coming all along." And that's the energy the book has; it feels very novelistic, very much like the whole thing could come crashing down around the characters at any moment--and while obviously it's not Rucka's intention to close out the series in a single arc, the story of Forever Carlyle has that kind of cinematic sense of urgency. There are so many lines of dialogue in this book that clearly have a built-in subtext and history to them--and given that we're coming in at the middle of the story, we don't know exactly what that subtext or history is (even if we can guess) and that leaves the reader feeling uneasy in the best possible way. If it's true, as fans so often say, that critics are overly negative because they feel it gives their work meaning, there are going to be a lot of frustrated comics reporters out there this week; Lazarus #1 is pretty damn close to a perfect comic.