Reckless
It’s not just a new original graphic novel from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It’s the start of a new publishing initiative from them. Rather than publish this volume in single-issue form, the creators have pivoted to the OGN format for this new series about former radical turned troubleshooter Ethan Reckless. The creators have said that doing this will allow them to put out more comics faster, with this being the first of three planned OGNs featuring the character. So it’s a good thing that this first volume is a solid introduction to the character and his world. It just pales a little when you compare it against the creators’ existing body of work, especially in the past year.
Brubaker talks about how “Reckless” was inspired in part by the series of novels featuring a singular character, usually a detective, roughneck, or spy, that his dad would read and the colorful images their covers cut on his shelf. I have no problem believing that. It’s just that for me, “Reckless’” setup and setting has me feeling that this of a piece with TV shows like “Magnum, P.I.,” “The A-Team,” and “MacGyver,” where you’d have a good guy (or guys) helping out some underdog only to find out that there’s more to the situation than they initially thought. I’m sure the fact that I’m a child of the 80’s has something to do with this feeling as well.
“Reckless’” setup has the title character living out his days on the West Coast in L.A., circa 1981. He lives out of a movie theater that he got from helping a guy out. Which is how he makes his living, helping other people out. Ethan has a phone number you can call to leave a message about your problem and if it appeals to his personal sense of justice, he’ll come and help you out. He’s even got a punk assistant, Anna, to help him sort through all of the repo jobs, surveillance, and rescues that come his way.
This latest case that he takes on, however, is personal. You see, Ethan used to be a member of a radical student group in the 70’s. How radical? The bomb-making kind of radical. They split up when one of their bombs went off unexpectedly, leaving Ethan with some scars and a few weeks of missing memories before and after the explosion. Before that, he and one of his fellow radicals had a pretty significant thing going. It’s this woman, Rainy Livingston, who is reaching out to him now.
It turns out that a few years after the explosion, she was part of a bank robbery where things went bad and a cop wound up dead. The plan was for all involved to lay low for a few years while the heat died down before everyone got their cut. Raiy did this, but when she went to get her cut, her contact told her that it was all gone. Now she wants to get out of the country and start a new life in Portugal, and she’s asking Ethan to help her get the money she’s owed. For old times’ sake.
Though this may sound like a thorough summary of the plot, I’ve left out all of the juicy twists and turns that Brubaker has managed to sneak into it. That there are twists in the plot of this first volume of “Reckless” is a good thing because it feels like a pretty straightforward read otherwise. We’ve seen the “former lovers meet up again because one is in trouble and the other winds up helping them out” setup before. This particular take on it doesn’t go to any unexpected places, but it does wind up going to some surprisingly dark ones as the first few pages will let you know. Yet just when you think you’ve got the story figured out, Brubaker manages to pull the rug out from underneath you either casually, or explosively.
There is one thing that sets this apart from the vast majority of the Brubaker/Phillips canon, and that’s it’s protagonist. Ethan Reckless isn’t a superhero or a criminal (who may or not also be a scumbag), or someone who is morally compromised. Most of the time he’s actually pretty agreeable, as a result of having lost touch with most of his emotions after that explosion. When he’s not working he spends his time getting high and surfing the waves to escape it all. Even when he’s on the job he realizes that the threat of violence is usually more effective than actual violence. Which he’s not averse to dishing out if the situation calls for it.
It does, however, lead to the one problem I have with his character. Ethan does talk a lot about how anger is the one emotion he can still connect with if the circumstances align. This is also what’s meant to drive his actions in the back half of the volume. The thing is that I never got the feeling this was the case, even when the bodies started to pile up. Brubaker has the character talk about it plenty in his internal monologue, except the tone of his dialogue never changes throughout the course of the story. The same goes for how Phillips handles Ethan as well. It’s not that he can’t draw the character being emotional, you just never get the feeling that the anger is taking over just by looking at him. Even if the creators intended this to be an internal anger, it plays way too sedate on the page.
This misstep aside, Phillips’ art is as strong as you’d expect from the man. He still manages to convey Ethan’s general likeability well, and the parts where he does get visibly emotional are always memorable. It’s also nice to see the artist tackle a well-lit region since most of his work takes place in (and is admittedly best suited to) shadowy places. Phillips captures the laid-back feel of California in the early 80’s, and that vibe contrasts well with all of the nasty stuff going on off the beaten paths Ethan treads. That’s because there’s still a lot of violence in this story and the artist knows how to frame it for maximum impact even when it’s such a nice day in the country.
If I were to rank “Reckless” against the other Brubaker/Phillips comics I read last year, it would come in third behind “Pulp” and “Cruel Summer.” Of course, when you consider that those two comics were REALLY GOOD even by the pair’s usual standards, I have to mention that I still really enjoyed their first full-length OGN. Even with the familiarity of its story and failure to properly address a key emotion, I wound up liking Ethan plenty and his first adventure had enough twists and style to fully hold my attention from beginning to end. It’s a good start for this series and, if I’m being generous, its present flaws indicate that there’s still the possibility for “Reckless” to get better from here.