Nomen Omen #9 // Review
A young heroine embarks on a dangerous adventure. This is nothing unusual. It's the type of thing that's happening over a dozen different places on the comic book rack this month alone. The fact that this particularly dangerous, little adventure happens to involve linking-up Lady Macbeth to Google Maps can only mean one thing: Nomen Omen #9. Writer Marco B. Bucci guides his heroine into a dangerous party held by a very sinister immortal in a story brought to the page by artist Jacopo Camagni. The contemporary fantasy glides along through another appealing issue that draws the series deeper into its second half.
Halloween approaches. Becky Kumar has been notified that the immortal King Taranis is planning a party involving a great ritual in honor of Samhain. It's a ritual fueled by the hearts of witches. Becky's heart went missing somewhere around the first issue, and she wants it back. And she's also looking to save a guy named Patrick. She's walking into a very dangerous place on a very powerful night. She's going to need some help that includes an immortal beast-man who was once the guardian of Central Park and Lady Macbeth. It's not going to be easy.
Bucci times this and the next issue perfectly for a Halloween season. The lead-in comes at September's end. The bulk of Taranis' party will make it to comic shops the week of Halloween. This fits quite well with the series's overall ritual, which seems to be flowing quite effectively on multiple levels both on and off the page. Bucci matches legend with earthbound reality while synching-up life on and off the page. Becky's mastery of magic through an understanding of I.T. could be explored in greater depth, but not without compromising the story's power and rhythm as it approaches a major juncture. As with so many of the previous issues of the series, Bucci balances everything quite well.
The overwhelming black and white that dominates so much of this issue speaks to the amount of the story that is grounded in a very solid emotional reality. Camagni's stark black-and-white drama is punctuated around the edges by the colors of magic, which overwhelmingly bathe the page as Becky enters a jack-o-lantern patch in the realm of dream. Though punctuated by the magic that forms the backbone of the plot, the rest of the issue is marked by emotional nuance read in the faces and body language of Becky, Lady Macbeth, and others. Camagni executes a strikingly well-modulated visual reality for the issue.
Fantasy can be challenging to bring to the comics page without blurring the story into overpowering garishness. Cleverly orchestrated by Bucci, Camagni crafts a visually-grounded story that finds its heart in human emotion. This kind of story is a bit of a rarity in a medium, so totally at home in exaggerated fantasy. Above all, there is an impressively dramatic progression. Becky is has made tremendous progress over the course of the year. She's an inspiringly different person now than she was in the first issue.
