Reaver vol. 2: The Grim After

After the bloody events of vol. 1, Essen Breaker has reached the “I’M A MAN OF PEACE!  I’M DONE KILLIN’!” phase of his mercenary career.  So he decides to look up his old comrade-in-arms Bren, who is currently running a tavern in the free port of Haas Haaden.  The thing is that Haas Haaden is such a hive of scum and villainy that anyone looking to begin a new phase in their life that doesn’t involve killing would be advised to stay the hell away from it.  Since Breaker decides to stick around, he quickly finds himself embroiled in a kidnapping operation being run by the local criminal element.  They’re taking stray kids off the street for purposes unknown and it’s up to Breaker, and a character from the first volume who turned out to not be as dead as they first seemed, to put a stop to this.

The most disappointing thing about Breaker’s “MAN OF PEACE” phase isn’t that it doesn’t last.  No, it’s that it follows the exact same arc that all of these phases do.  A man renowned for his ability to cause violence decides to stop doing it, only to come up against a situation that requires it again.  The best kinds of these stories can make this seem like a genuine tragedy.  The worst simply bore you with words while you wait for the man to start killing again.  Breaker’s arc in this volume is very much of the latter variety, and writer Justin Jordan offers no interesting twists or characterization to convince me otherwise.

At least artist Niko Henrichon does his best to make the story look appealingly gritty.  This isn’t on the level of his best work, since it’s hard to deliver European-album-quality art when you’re on a monthly schedule.  Yet he makes Haas Haaden look like a properly filthy place and gives Breaker’s violent ways a bone-crunching shock that suits his character quite well.  I don’t know if he’ll be sticking around for the third volume that’s teased at the end of this one.  Henrichon deserves better, so if I were him I’d go and find a writer who doesn’t feel the need to desperately adhere to convention to do better work with.