Fatale Deluxe Edition, Volume One by Ed BrubakerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fatale is another amazing collaboration between Brubaker and Phillips (of Criminal fame. Also Sleeper and Incognito, all of which are fantastic reads). In this book, Brubaker blends two parts Dashiell Hammett with one part H.P. Lovecraft, mixes well, and hard boils it for maximum noir goodness. Josephine, the femme fatale of the title, is on the run from a cult determined to find her. At some point in her past, she was cursed; she can influence men to do her bidding, without even meaning to, but doing so inevitably leads them to bad endings.
Brubaker and Phillips have been one of my favorite creative teams for a long time, now, but, even by their high standards, this is a really inspired work. The twist on a classic trope works really well, and it's surprising that the "noir/horror" combination doesn't seem to be used more often.
Brubaker has always done a good job with crime stories, and this is no exception. Here, he's playing around with various noir tropes, and putting a supernatural spin on them to create a fresh new take on a very old genre. The idea that the femme fatale's power over men comes from a supernatural source is actually quite clever, and gets around some of the plot-induced stupidity that men in noir novels sometimes seem to suffer. It also leads to some interesting moments where the men involved question their own actions, wondering why they seem to be acting in ways they wouldn't normally, but also wondering if they're better for it or not.
This first volume spans three generations worth of time, and Brubaker handles this with aplumb by having a framing story set in modern times, with a character looking over documents and manuscripts to queue up flashbacks. It's not complicated, but it is effective. Given that Jo's plot is already complicated enough between her agelessness and the cult, and etc, it's nice that Brubaker made it pretty easy to follow the timeline and spot the overlaps.
Phillips visuals are perfect for this. He captures the heavy shadows, distorted features, and dramatic angles that mark the noir aesthetic. His character designs are perfectly suited to capturing the sense of dread the story contains. I particularly like the designs for the Old Man who leads the cult in the first arc, and of the nameless Associates who follow him around.
This edition also includes two short essays at the end, discussing topics/themes that are present in the work (in particular, Lovecraftian horror, and Poe). Some nudity/sexual content, gore, and violence might make this unsuitable for younger readers, but none of it feels gratuitous. Highly recommended for fans of noir and crime novels who don't mind bit of supernatural horror blended in. Now I just need to get volume 2.
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