Pearl vol. 3

Pearl Tanaka is the Ghost Dragon of San Francisco.  That’s what people are calling the woman who is the head of the Yakuza there and business is going good for her.  Sure, she just had the Endo Twins burn down their sex shoppe strip mall the Sugar Shack, but that was more of a mercy kill than anything else.  The FBI is looking into it, and it just so happens that the lead agent is a good friend of Pearl’s.  Everything’s coming up Millhouse for the title character!  So much so that this seems like just the right time (narratively speaking) for someone to throw a grenade into her life and leave the Ghost Dragon to pick up the pieces.

Vol. 1 was good.  Vol. 2 was a mess that still had some redeeming factors.  Vol. 3… is somewhere in between the two.  Writer Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos have a clearer idea of the story they want to tell here and it thankfully doesn’t involve Pearl and her tattoo artist boyfriend Rick deciding they want out of this life again.  Actually, it does.  For a couple pages and just in a way that feels human rather than plot-driven.  In fact, there’s a lot here in this volume that recalls the writer’s crime-and-character-driven early stories where you can tell a lot about the characters just by seeing how they talk to each other.  A highlight in this area is the flashback to showing how Pearl’s bodyguard, Bolo, got the job.

That part is also emblematic of this volume’s weaknesses as there’s a lot of quality stuff set up in the first issue that’s immediately discarded by its end in the name of shock value.  It continues to happen throughout this volume, leading to a climax that comes too quickly while also feeling like it was set up on some shaky story logic.  This is disappointing, but it at least has Gaydos’ inventive style to make it all look good.  Which means that while what’s here doesn’t quite kill the momentum for the series like vol. 2 did, it doesn’t leave me yearning for a fourth volume of this series.  

Unless it’s all about the Endo Twins.  I’m still yearning for those dumb crooks to get their moment in the spotlight, even if it costs $25 (like this volume did).