Sunday Splash Page #292

 

"Scheme-atic", in Kaiju Score: Steal from the Gods #2, by James Patrick (writer), Rem Broo (artist), Francesco Segala (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

First rule of sequels: Do the same thing as last time, but more of it. Or do it bigger, whichever. And so, this time around, the heist involves stealing a lot of treasure from the gut of a partially excavated but sedated ultra-kaiju out in Siberia.

Patrick actually sticks with the conclusion of the first mini-series as far as its protagonist, Marco, goes. Man retired and, brief appearance to offer some planning assistance aside, stays retired. Instead, the lead is Michelle, the girl who impersonated the master safe-cracker to raise the funds to save her crew. She's leading a crew of her own now, sticking to small, safe heists. Until circumstances force her to take the big, risky, crazy job.

The circumstances, a contract placed on her and her crew, is only there to force that issue. Patrick largely leaves it as a specter in the background, because he doesn't waste time pretending the people who hire Michelle aren't going to stab in her the back. So the tension is in what shape the betrayal will take, and whether everyone in the crew can make it out. Only one of the three characters in her current crew is left over from her first crew, and he's the one who always seems to fuck up somehow.

It raises the question of whether people can change, and if so, is it something you consciously do, or something that happens? Can Glover actually get it together enough to carry his share of the load? Is Michelle the same person she was before the first score, just pretending to be harder, or has she actually changed?

Broo's art is able to make people look very cool and stylish, and also, when needed, make them look like the most insufferable jackasses on the planet. That's important, since the people trying to mess with Michelle are written as incredibly insufferable and arrogant. Being able to make characters look cool is important since Patrick still loves giving people cool one-liners or Tarantino-like dialogue, which we're meant to take seriously at least some of the time. So the characters need to look like the sort who could say such things without being ridiculous.