Narco #1 // Review
Marcus is sitting on a park bench at night. He’s got a laptop. He’s using someone else’s wi-fi. And he’s writing about serial killers. (He’s got a thing about serial killers. Figures that there might be one in the city in which he lives. One with an insidious MO that has him copying other serial killers as camouflage for his own murders. Then he passes out. This is the beginning of Narco #1. Writer Doug Wagner opens a paranoid murder/mystery thriller with artist Daniel Hillyard and colorist Dave Stewart. It’s a promising opening for a mystery thriller with a stron visual component to bind it to the comics page.
The good news is that Marcus wakes-up in time to make it out to the diner a little bit later-on and meet with his friends. Maybe he'll even get up the courage to ask the waitress who works there out on a date. She's completely out for it. In fact, she is offering to make him dinner in an exchange for fixing her Wi-Fi. There's a problem though: she's a very exciting person. And he has a tendency to pass out when his pulse gets too quick. Marcus is an narcoleptic.
Wagner establishes all of the foundations for what should be a really entertaining thriller when things really get going. There's a strong emotional impact in the events of the first issue. The woman that Marcus has a crush on does seem like a really interesting person. Or at least a really nice person. And so naturally, the events of the first issue you were going to have a strong emotional impact. The nature of Marcus's condition is also going to draw the leader into a sympathetic position with him as well.
That story is following a whole bunch of people in their early 20s. There's a strong sense of youth about the issue that really helps propel all of the drama that's going on. There's a solid earthbound and physical reality about the rendering of the generic city in question. There’s just enough expressiveness to add personality to all of the action around the edges of the drama. But there was a moments win Marcus is about to pass out our particularly strong visually. The rendering of the visuals turn into a trippy fish ice spaghetti style mutation of the world around Marcus. We're seeing it all through his eyes. It's quite effective.
The emotional end of the thriller is firmly established. The nuts and bolts of the mystery and all of the details that are going to evolve overtime feel like they have a firm footing. It's really just a matter of making sure that the pacing continues to move as firmly as it does and the first issue. The precise layout of the scenes in the first issue seem to suggest a very crisp and tight sense of delivery on all of the basic elements of the story. A very promising opening for a really interesting series.
