Two-Step is another of Warren Ellis' oddball miniseries for WildStorm.  It's an alternate London of 2001, and online cam-girl Rosi Blades is getting bored with her audience and her city.  Until she stumbles upon zen gunman Tony Ling, who livens up her day tremendously.

This book reads like self-parody.  The obsession with London.  The chainsmoking lead male in a black suit and tie.  The clever-clever internet-oriented mobile technology that Ellis bangs on about incessantly in his blog.  The sci-fi pseudo-journalism.  The cynical yet broad comedy.  It ticks the boxes for an awful lot of Warren Ellis cliches.

Normally, it is a very bad thing when a book reads like self-parody, because normally it's a sign that a writer ran out of ideas years ago.  But this is so blatant that it's presumably intentional.  It's a light, frothy distillation of some of Ellis' most identifiable hobby-horses, and since it's genuinely pretty funny, it gets away with it.

How far its appeal will spread beyond self-aware Warren Ellis fans, I'm not so sure.  It's certainly endearingly silly, and Amanda Conner gives it the sort of tongue-in-cheek perkiness it needs to work.  Personally, though, I prefer this sort of thing blended with more in the way of an actual story, as it was in the earlier Transmetropolitan stories.

Ultimately, I think what we've got here is an amusing throwaway piece for the fanbase.  Fine for what it's setting out to do, but unlikely to be of much interest beyond Ellis' existing audience.

Rating: B

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