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Matador has been in the works for
years. It's a collaboration between Brian Stelfreeze and
Devin Grayson (his story idea, her script).
Homicide detective Isobel Cardona
investigates a murder and comes up with a witness who insists
that the killing was committed by an implausibly cool and
stylish hitman who spent the whole time humming to himself.
She comes up with an unlikely theory tying together a string
of seemingly unrelated killings, based on the strange killer's
unlikely dancing style. Not surprisingly, her superior
thinks she's nuts. Equally unsurprisingly, she's right.
It's that sort of story.
But you don't really buy Brian Stelfreeze
comics for the plots. His art is the main selling point
here. Stylized and cool, Stelfreeze is perfectly matched
with this kind of material. He creates the sort of
slightly distanced world which retain their realism while
allowing an inherently unlikely character like the Matador to
fit in. His colouring is key to the work - most scenes
are dominated with a single colour, while still somehow
managing to seem natural. That lets the key elements
stand out.
The Matador's costume is simple, but
perfect for Stelfreeze's style. It's a black and white
suit, and a black coat with red lining. The point, of
course, is that the glimpses of red stand out a mile against
the rest of the page. It all goes to help make the
character look inhumanly perfect, and ridiculously cool.
As for the story, obviously it's a formula
that we've all seen many times before. But it's
reasonably well executed, and if Isobel is a stock character -
the driven cop who needs to work on her personal life - at
least she's a well rounded one. Also, in fairness, the
end of the issue suggests that we might be going somewhere
other than the usual "heroine spends six issues hunting down
the dashing criminal" story. Not that the stock story
would be a particular problem, because the heart of this book
is the artwork.
Brian Stelfreeze's art is always a selling
point for me, and this is a promising start.
Rating: B+
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