Lost Fantasy #1 // Review
Henry Blackheart shows-up at the hospital looking to speak to the victim. Of course...not just anyone would be able to do that. Henry Blackheart IS a special consultant for the FBI. Doesn’t exactly LOOK like someone working for the FBI, though. Dressed casually entirely in black. A ragged mop of white hair on his head. This isn’t the look of a field agent for the FBI. Henry Blackheart isn’t exactly a normal FBI agent, though He’s the central hero in Lost Fantasy #1. Writer Curt Pires opens a whole new horror fantasy mystery series with artist Luca Casalanguida. Color comes to the page courtesy of Mark Dale.
Agent Blackheart is going to have some difficulty talking to the victim in question. She’s in a coma. Was run down in some rural wooded area in the night. She was on the run from something. Didn’t see the car until it was too late. Agent Blackheart’s come out to the rural community where it happened in order to investigate. He’s not actually all that social, but he’s got a lot of things going on. After all...he IS in contact with some pretty serious magical energies and they ARE all quite dangerous. Can’t afford to get distracted by inane small talk or any of the local culture
So...it’s a contemporary supernatural horror adventure mixed with a police procedural. Got it. Blackheart isn’t exactly a very compelling character and there have been a lot of the likes of him stalking around in the supernatural shadows in and out of comics. It’s still early and there’s a lot of potential for him to distinguish himself as the series progresses, but the first issue doesn’t give enough of a hint at anything terribly new in the mix. Still...it IS a fun sort of a moody action mystery story and it DOES have some momentum going into its second issue.
Casalanguida does a good job of bringing a kind of an overwhelming sense of darkness to the page that feels suitably amplified by the coloring work of Mark Dale. The action can feel big and gloopy in pplaces without a whole lot of tightness to the rendering or detail, but the overall energy and sense of layout make-up for the gloopiness the rendering. Ideally Casalanguida’s detail would be a little bit more intricate on the page, but the visual dynamic being conjured into Lost Fantasy IS a lot of fun.
As dull as aspects of the story might seem, there’s a pretty jarring narrative slam at issue’s end. The impact of that last moment DOES suggest that the narrative could be going in an interesting direction moving forward, but it’s still early-on and a lot could happen. Pires and company will likely give a much better idea of the overall run of the series by the end of the second issue. The quality of the series is still a bit of a mystery as of the end of the first issue.
