Kabuki relaunches as the second (and, for the moment, final) title in Marvel's Icon range.  The longterm plans for Icon remain decidedly oblique, but it appears that they're offering it as a vehicle for Image-style projects for people with Marvel exclusivity deals.

That actually makes a certain degree of sense.  It lets Marvel sign people to exclusive deals without having to talk them into abandoning much-loved projects - or carving out exceptions that make the real purpose of the contract a little too obvious.  ("Work for whoever the hell you want, as long as it isn't DC.")

Kabuki has been around in one form or another for a decade now, and it's been picking up critical acclaim for years.  I've largely ignored it.  I see that I reviewed the first issue of the spin-off series Kabuki Agents back in 1999, gave it an A-, and then forgot all about it.

Since then, creator David Mack has increasingly developed an interest in unusual and experimental storytelling techniques, as we saw most recently in his Daredevil fill-in run.  The same approach is used here, in an issue that clearly fancies itself as a jumping-on point but has some very funny ideas about how to go about writing one.  Lots of dream-like stuff, odd collages, and writing around the edges of panels, as you'd expect from Mack these days.

There is no denying that Mack's artwork is beautiful, nor that his comics are commendably experimental.  He's certainly pushing the boundaries of the medium, and producing work which really breaks down the division between the page and the panel, turning the page layout into an atmospheric quality in its own right.

The problem with Mack's Daredevil run, however, was that he applied all this virtuoso storytelling to a plot which wasn't interesting in the slightest.  It was gloriously expressed, but at its core, not very interesting.  I have much the same problem with this issue.  Beautiful?  Yes.  Innovative?  Undoubtedly.  Do I care about the characters, or anything that's happening?  Not particularly.

The plot, such as it is, has Kabuki setting out to start a new life.  We're not really told why.  She's got a wound on her arm.  We're not told why.  She's been given needlessly cryptic directions of how to get out of the country.  They're from "a friend".  We're not told who.  Nor are we told why she wants to leave the country.  Kabuki journeys across country for the issue and delivers assorted monologues about starting a new life, much of which seems more about metafiction than about introducing the character.  She drones on about Chinese calligraphers changing identity halfway through their careers so that they could start again without the burden of audience expectations.  My heart bleeds.

Mack has clearly made a conscious decision not to recap the plot for newcomers.  It isn't properly explained in the story, and one presumes he could have found space to include a recap, if so advised, somewhere amongst the seven pages of (mostly fawning) letters.  I assume the idea is that since this is meant to be a new start for Kabuki in her life, her past is irrelevant and excluded (or reduced to allusion) because you don't need to know it.  If so, I don't accept the premise.  Of course you need to know something about her background because it informs the reasons she's trying to start a new life in the first place - presumably.  It would also render allusions to previous stories more comprehensible.  What the fuck am I supposed to make of a page of crushed dragonflies?

I want to like books like Kabuki, I really do.  I'm in favour of experimenting with the medium.  I'm glad to see Marvel publishing something like this at all, even if their reasons for doing so have more than a dash of cynicism to them.  It's a beautiful visual object and its admirers seem to treat it as something that ought to be elevated into the canon.

But however much I try, I find the book pretentious, inaccessible and self-congratulatory.  It just doesn't work for me at all.

Rating: C

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