Geek Syndicate Issue 5 | Page 65

Geek Syndicate
COMIC REVIEW

Lobster Johnson Vol.2 - The Burning Hand
Image © Dark Horse Comics, 2012

the mob in prohibition-era New York, ably assisted by spunky newspaper reporter Cindy Tynan. The plot itself is pretty straightforward. Cindy becomes embroiled in mobster Arnie Wald’s property scam. In doing so she crosses paths first with some of Lobster Johnson’s crew and then with the man himself. Wald is being manipulated into making use of some shady supernatural characters and soon the two groups come head-tohead and battle commences. Things move along at some pace and at times I could have done with dwelling on some of the plot elements for longer, particularly to strengthen the emotional engagement with the characters. Speaking of characters and this might sound like a backhanded compliment, which it’s not meant to be, but the characters of this series are straight out of central casting. The spunky reporter, afraid of nothing, the grasping mob boss, the supernatural femme fatale, they’re all here and really don’t deviate from expectation. That doesn’t detract from the enjoyment though, in fact I find it a little like sitting down to an episode of a TV show five or six seasons in. Everything has a sense of comfortable familiarity and achieving this with characters we’ve just met is a nice upside of the lack of ingenuity.

Lobster himself makes a great entrance, his cry of “Taste justice, impostors!” is amongst a number of smile-inducing lines he has throughout the series. It’s insanely cheesy but I love it. I first became aware of artist Tonci Zonjic when he drew the Marvel Divas series, which utterly confounded my expectations and I’d highly recommend. His work here has evolved considerably and suits the 1930s setting to a tee. There’s an effect he and colourist Dave Stewart use for one of the supernatural powers in use (which I won’t spoil) which is really well rendered and quite unexpected. My main criticism would be that the book feels like only a small part of a story, it’s presented as being a selfcontained arc but there’s just too much left hanging for my taste. However, that means I’ll definitely be onboard for the third collected edition of Lobster Johnson tales!

Writer: Mike Mignolia & John Arcudi Artist: Tonci Zonjic Colourist: Dave Stewart Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

When a tribe of dead Indians start scalping the policemen in the city, Hellboy’s crime-fighting hero Lobster Johnson and his allies arrive to take on these foes and their gangster cronies! Collects Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand #1-#5.

Guns, girls, mobsters, monsters and a bloke with a giant crustacean claw on his clobber…what’s not to love in this collection from Dark Horse? For the uninitiated the titular character of the series is a pulp-era action hero from the Hellboy and BPRD universe who first span out of those books into his own story in Iron Prometheus. Whilst in that series he tackled the Nazi menace (naturally), here he takes on

Dave Williams
Rating:

GGGGG

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