Blood Tree #6 // Review
Detective Azzaro has brought a crowbar to a crime scene. Thereβs a look of determination on his face. Someone who meant a hell of a lot to him has died in the line of duty. Now, heβs very, very upset and looking for answers in Blood Tree #6. Writer Peter J. Tomasi and artist Maxim Ε imiΔ conclude their earthy tough-as-nails crime drama with an aggressive issue featuring a somewhat powerful finale as Azzaro looks to get revenge for the death of Detective Maria Diaz. The Angel Killerβs victims are raining down all over Manhattan. Before the final panel, thereβs going to be at least one more to fall...
Itβs not just the police tape on the door to the apartment that Azzaro has to get through. Itβs also the door itself, a pool table, a whole bunch of floorboards, and worst of all: his own frustration. Heβs lying shirtless in the rubble of it all when he wakes up, grabs a bottle of water, and goes to work on the walls. As luck would have it, he finds something in the plaster thatβs hopefully going to crack the case wide open. The real challenge is only beginning.
Tomasi plays with homicide detective cliches and stereotypes that have been echoing through crime fiction for nearly a century now. Thereβs really, truly nothing new here. It IS interesting, however, to see something like this take itself so seriously in a contemporary world of psychological complexity. Tomasi just has a cop who wonβt stop off the rails and on the trail of a murderer no one can seem to track down. The fact that itβs fun at all in light of all of the hackneyed cliche really says something about Tomasiβs talent as a writer. One wonders what he might do with an original concept.
Ε imiΔ finds a way of taking crude renderings and making them feel real. Theyβre amplifying mood, motion, and emotion in a way that seems a bit stronger than straight-ahead realism would allow for. Itβs fascinating to see Ε imiΔ at work on a story that is so totally grounded in realism...but with strange idiosyncrasies, too. Like when a bunch of people fall to their death wearing wings. That sort of thing. Thereβs a simplicity about the darker ends of the story, which hit the page in interesting ways that transcend the cliche of it all.
The story ends in an uneasy kind of peace. The final showdown with the killer features fire, rain, and a whole lot of bullets. Itβs caught somewhere in between the real and the unreal. Itβs not over-the-top darkness like Frank Millerβs Hard Boiled, but itβs scarcely the kind of complex realism that is so very, very rare in police procedural dramas. Itβs just...kind of a fun trip into a Silence of the Lambs sort of drama that never quite goes far enough in any direction to register much of an impression.
