Silver Coin #4 // Review
The life of a single cursed coin is brought to the far future with the fourth issue of Silver Coin. The anthology moves into a horror-cyberpunk mode for its latest issue, written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by series co-creator Michael Walsh. The journey of a fugitive thief makes for an interesting enough story, but Walsh doesn't manage to develop the kind of immersive tech that would make for a compelling fusion with the cyberpunk genre. It's a bit of a mess, but the story's overall horror makes for a fun read in the brief runtime between the front and back covers.
She's a thief. Her tech is in her eye. Little tendrils lash their way out in search of credits. The police are on to her, though. There's a police drone chasing her from her latest score. The police have authorized lethal force. Is her life really worth a measly 43 creds? There's only one way to find out...and it's going to involve diving into the under-city and running into a rather strange bit of hardware that's been infected with a virus that predates the first computers. It might just be enough to save her life.
The story is interesting enough. Lemire has a really simple chase sequence that does a pretty good job of keeping the mind from wandering beyond the immediacy of the action. That being said, a whole bunch of questions are going to crop up in a world where life is as cheap as 43 creds. There's no telling what that's worth exactly, but there's every indication that the woman being chased is a relatively petty thief, so the state-sanctioned murder feels a bit like overkill. The eye-based tentacle-tech is kind of a fun idea, and some of the poetry of the chase feels interesting, but it lacks the depth that would have made for something more powerful.
There's an eye motif in the issue that Walsh does a good job of developing. Some of the overall look of this particular dark future feels suitably atmospheric. Still, Walsh is short on detail, which is a real problem for the hi-def info-tech overload that makes for the best cyberpunk visuals. Walsh's gloopy moodiness is not without its charm, but there isn't enough in the visuals that he's developing to make for an appealing story. There IS a way to make shadowy horror fit perfectly into a cyberpunk setting, but Walsh hasn't found it in the fourth issue of Silver Coin.
It's nice to see the anthology series willing to branch out and try something wild. Following the life of a single coin in a series of one-shot stories might run the risk of feeling a bit repetitious. Adding sci-fi cyberpunk horror into the mix would seem to be a good fit, but Lemire and Walsh haven't found a way to manage it that feels interesting. A sudden jolt to the future for the series in its fourth issue should have been more darkly dazzling.
