There were two comics out this week I wanted. I only found one, but it's nice to have any new books after what a drag July was. There's possibly 5 comics out next week I might want! Five! Wow! And I was able to donate the stuff I pulled from my collection over the last year+, so that's a little more space freed up in my apartment.
Val is in Florida, fresh off 8 years in prison, to ask her old platoon buddy Miles for a job. Not as a bartender, but for his other business - drug running. Miles blows a lot of smoke about how it isn't his call - mostly in a one-page stretch Sudzuka draws where Miles' body stays still and just his head and expressions change. Which makes him look a bit like a ventriloquist dummy someone's controlling. There's definitely an uncanny valley aspect to it.
Eventually he comes around to a deal: An associate of his, a lady named Leo, stole a shopping bag full of cocaine, and is trying to sell it. Miles wants her dead, as a statement, and even knows a likely place to find her. Leo's attempt to sell the product goes south, and Val steps in to keep a bouncer from catching Leo. Given Leo took back the coke by driving an SUV into the room, I'm not sure why she didn't just, drive back out, instead of exiting through the club. I guess the vehicle was busted by then, although it isn't drawn like that. Maybe the point is that Leo is long on moxie, short on brains.
Anyway, Val has some sort of episode while fighting the bouncer, which Sudzuka draws as a fissure opening in the ground and Val being ensnared by a bunch of thin red vines, before ending up in a jungle. Svorcina sticks to muted colors for most of the issue, dull earth tones, but goes vivid red and greens as Val slips into the fugue state or whatever. By the time Val comes out of it, she's beating the bouncer senseless. Val is aware of what's happening to her, but not what's going on outside her head.
Out on the streets, Val passes up the chance to shoot Leo, then also declines the offer to get some grub at a diner nearby. Except there's an FBI guy waiting in Val's hotel room. She's out on a work release/Task Force X-style agreement, and FBI dude (OK, his name is Charles Lamb, but he's clearly a dick and we're not supposed to like him, so who cares) has no issue with Val killing someone if it helps him.
No, I don't think she can kill him if she argues presenting the corpse of an FBI agent would help her get inside Miles' organization. So that's where things stand. Miles wants Leo dead. Lamb wants Miles' organization brought down. Val wants to stay out of prison. I assume Leo wants to be rich.
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