Kill or Be Killed vol. 2
This second volume of Brubaker and Phillips’ vigilante contains two more issues than the first one. More does not always mean better, but in this case it does as it means we see more of its protagonist’s, Dylan’s, struggles as killing starts to get a lot more complicated for him. It starts when some cops walk in on him in a diner bathroom after he’s shotgunned a financier to death. While Dylan is able to extract himself from that situation with an appropriate show of force it’s on the beginning of his troubles.
Not only does this incident lead to headlines about a masked vigilante in New York City, but it also tips off the Russian mobsters to his existence as well. They’re looking for some payback after a guy in a similar mask made a hash of their prostitution ring in vol. 1, after all. Meanwhile, Dylan’s personal life is only marginally better as he hooks up with Daisy, a former flame. Yet he still has to deal with his increasingly assholish roommate Mason, and childhood friend/former girlfriend Kira who has her own issues to deal with after she finds out that Dylan’s medication may not be what he thinks it is.
Again, the best part of this series continues to be seeing how its protagonist deals with the challenges set in front of his killing odyssey. Where his initial problems mainly stemmed from trying to find someone who deserved to die, now Dylan has to deal with actual law enforcement. This is also a welcome problem for the series as the lawperson acting as point on this investigation, Lily Sharpe, provides some engaging takes from someone on the opposite side who is also fighting through the antipathy inherent in the system at the same time.
On the other side of the law, we’ve got the Russians. They’re every bit as ruthless as you’d expect their stereotype to be, yet they provide an even more imminent threat since they’re not looking to take Dylan alive. More pressing is that they’re also willing to any connection our protagonist has in order to get at him. Dylan’s dealings with the Russians here is the first clue he has that his actions may wind up affecting those around him in a direct fashion. While it’s clear that he’s not going to stop (to us, at least) it sets up a familiar-yet-intriguing moral conundrum for the vigilante to deal with.
While I’m looking forward to see where the creators go with these threads, they don’t do a good job of furthering that with the volume’s finale. It involves Daisy setting up an exhibition of the weird, sexy/porny art of Dylan’s father without his permission and our protagonist encountering a certain picture that will be very familiar to everyone who still remembers the final page from vol. 1. It may be easy to understand the storytelling implications of this encounter, it’s not the best way to cap things off from a dramatic perspective. That’s because in ending the second volume in almost the exact same way as the first it makes you wonder if we’ve made any progress in the story at all.
That’s not true, of course, but it’s the main feeling that vol. 2 leaves you with. Still, now that Dylan is on the same page as the reader I can’t see vol. 3 having the same problem. “Kill or Be Killed” may have stumbled at the end of its second volume, but it’s still a compelling and compulsively readable work otherwise.