The Executor h/c back

Yes! This is so much more like it! Finally the Vertigo Crime imprint gets firmly back on track with a brutal modern crimes (plural, note) story that doesn't stop beating you around the head and stabbing you in the gut until the very last page. Up to the same standard as imprint opener FILTHY RICH by Brian Azzarello (who incidentally supplies the front cover quote on this work), THE EXECUTOR is a very nasty, twisted little story which starts when former professional ice hockey hardman Joe Ullen returns to his backwater home town to execute his long-past ex-girlfriend's will. He has no idea why she picked him, but it soon becomes apparent that the recent apparent kidnap for custody of a small girl from a mixed race relationship by her Native American Indian father is not what it seems at all, and as events unfold a long legacy of unpleasant crimes start to be uncovered going right back to the murder of two Indian high-schoolers some twenty years previously. But how are the crimes all connected? The heads of the conflicting town police and reservation police aren't much use to Joe as he gets dragged further into matters by the contents of a letter his ex-girlfriend has left specifically for him, a letter which causes him to doubt his long-held belief over someone's story regarding a very, very pivotal event indeed many years previously.

Ahhh, Jon Evans has got his finger right on the pulse of the bleeding-out artery here. And finally they've brought in someone who can draw again in Andrea Mutti. I'm particularly appreciative of the fact that Evans has allowed Mutti many, many dialogue-free panels just to let the action flow where necessary. In a word, THE EXECUTOR is nasty, which is just how we like it.