The Comic Book Club: Captain America and Batroc, FF, and Stumptown

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EVAN: As the only member of Techland’s Comic Book Club who doesn’t live in Portland, mine is the only opinion that can be trusted about Stumptown vol. 1.

So, basically, it rocks.

Something about the magic that Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth work in this Oni Press collection creates such a strong sense of place that it manages to feel “right” even to the eyes of a born-and-bred New Yorker like me. There’s a laconic vibe to the proceedings that evokes the setting. Down-on-her-luck PI Dex Parios is investigating a possible kidnapping, but nothing ever feels frantic. The story works at its own pace, and you get to soak up all these beautiful elements about what Portland must be like. Stumptown percolates with an outdoorsy sensibility that makes the criminal activity feel more sinister. That first sequence where a goose bears witness to Dex getting shot makes a great juxtaposition that just pulls you in. Southworth gets a lot of mileage out of that kind of transposition, and it takes the reader to some gorgeous places.

DOUGLAS: It’s true. (And obviously I love this series–I named it as one of the best serial comic books of last year.) Portland’s not just the comics creator capital of America: there’s a sense of civic pride here that’s different from anywhere else I’ve ever lived, and Rucka and Southworth (who doesn’t actually live here!) totally get the Portland vibe. Detail after detail grounds the story in an actual place, from Voodoo Doughnut to the architecture of Dex’s home. (It’s also worth mentioning that “Stumptown” is a nickname for the city, the name of a locally popular coffee joint–which puts in an appearance within the story!–and the name of our excellent local comics festival.) Just showing a bunch of bridges doesn’t make a comic book Portland-y; Stumptown actually gets how the weather works, how the light works, what kind of buildings are in what part of town. It’s a story about Portland in the same sense that The Wire is a story about Baltimore.

(More on TIME.com: The Ten Best Comic Books of 2010)

But yes: the pacing does a lot here. This book seems like a laid-back story, until you pull back from it and realize just how much plot is going on. It’s just that Southworth knows how to let a page breathe.

EVAN: I love that the criminal enterprise in this volume is driven by family dysfunction. It’s not a new take on fictional malevolence but Rucka adds in a sprinkling of immigrant aspiration to make the thing hum a bit more believably.

Much has been said about Greg Rucka and the way he writes women, which is to say he writes them excellently. But here’s his big secret: he writes women like men, like fully realized humans. Rucka’s women get horny, make bad decisions, burn with incandescent inner furies like leading characters are supposed to. They’re self-aware of their places in their stories, not just lust objects with g-strings that peek over waistbands. Dex isn’t written as a corrective. She just exists, in a wonderful stream of snappy, surprising dialogue and gritty linework that makes her just real enough to want to know more about.

DOUGLAS: Dex is a terrific character, but what I like even more is the way Rucka’s handling the slow revelation of everything that’s so interesting about her–I think at least a couple times a chapter we get some piece of information about her that throws what’s come before it into a slightly different light. We know she’s burned a lot of bridges, but I imagine we don’t even know the beginning of the details, and I’m sure Rucka does know.

GRAEME: That’s something that Rucka continually does with all of his characters, I think; he knows all the important things that drives them, but he withholds them from the reader until it comes out organically, as opposed to exposition or awkward conversation. But, yeah, Dex is an amazing character, fully formed from the first page and charismatic as hell even with (especially because of?) her flaws, which are many and varied. She works both as a classic PI and an update of, and commentary on, the classic PI stereotype, the same way that the story in the Stumptown hardcover is both a classic detective story and a commentary on one.

There’s a lot that’s familiar here, but made to seem fresh through the execution. Taken as plot points only, the story should feel tired and generic, but Rucka and Southworth – whose work here is just great, tighter and more natural than his work has been elsewhere – give it such heart and such smarts that it becomes compelling, moving quickly enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, but slowly enough not to throw you off the edge with a “shocking revelation” at the end of each chapter. I’m a big fan of Rucka, and this feels like the best thing he’s written in years, harking back to his earliest Kodiak novels. Really, really recommended.

EVAN: I know we’re done here, but I just want to say: Goddamn was Batman Inc. #4 good! Just when you think Grant Morrison’s going for camp and laughs, he brings in that creepy, psycho-macabre shit. So awesome.

(More on TIME.com: The Comic Book Club: Night Animals and Batman Inc.)

DOUGLAS: With you there. And I really love that he’s looping back around to the Kathy Kane stuff we saw glimpses of in that two-part post-R.I.P. story. I’m wondering if this is a story Morrison wrote for Chris Burnham or for Yanick Paquette to draw; in any case, Burnham kicked ass, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s doing on #6 and 7.

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