Writer: Brendan Cahill
Artist: John Burns
Publisher: Marvel
John Burns? John Burns? No, this couldn't possibly be John Burns. John Burns is a sixties pop artist who had a brief stint on Modesty Blaise but is better known for Judge Dredd and Doctor Who strips. This surely can't be the same guy.
One look at the beautiful painted issue of Sable & Fortune was all I needed to confirm my hopes. It really is John Burns. Burns' art style is reminiscent of Robert McGuinness whose work graced the covers of sixties paperbacks--those especially of James Bond. Thanks to an experience grown from comic strips Burns introduces more color and more animation in his work, and this preference makes him ideal for comics. In short Burns' work makes sweet a two-syllable word.
Now before I read Spider-Man/Black Cat and some of Geoff Johns' worst I would have said that a book's story could have been complete rubbish and it would still be worth it if John Burns had painted the panels. I have learned my lesson. The story can't be complete rubbish. It can be a little rubbishy, and the book would still be worth buying thanks to John Burns' eye-stunning paintings.
Fortunately, the story's pretty good.
Silver Sable is a second-generation mercenary who inherited her operations from her father. She was a character introduced in the Spider-Man titles and has been best known for unwittingly harboring the allegedly reformed Sand Man among her Wild Pack. Dominic Fortune was Howard Chaykin's creation--the dumb clod version of the Scorpion, an Atlas prototype. The period adventurer Dominic Fortune fought it out with zombies and thirties staple macabre characters in the back issues of the Incredible Hulk magazine. He was last seen as an octogenarian hero joining forces with Spidey in an issue of Marvel Team-Up.
Writer Brendan Cahill makes Sable an elegant femme fatale who sees her operation as a business and runs it like a business. She is a tough manager and not one for abiding by any laws save the ones she makes. When an extraction goes south, Sable smells a rat. The problem is that the odor comes from a closer source than she expects. Sable however does not deal with the rat among her mice in a way one expects. She instead dissolves the company.
Free from the Wild Pack, Sable after some prompting goes ratting by her lonesome and follows a clue provided by her one dependable, loyal man. Her trail leads to the new Dominic Fortune. Cahill won me over with Sable's attitude early in the book, and he has given her a lower threshold of tolerance that adds a bit more spice than previously seen. He impresses more when she displays an intelligence that allows her to know what the name Dominic Fortune means as well as not ruling out a possible rejuvenation for the adventurer. Sable joined forces with a man who sticks to walls. Why not rejuvenation?
Cahill's Dominic Fortune is probably not the original. More simply and more likely Cahill intends to make him a descendent, which is fine by me. Cahill's Dominic is smarter than the original and has the more current occupation of private eye. Cahill gives him Dominic's lighter attitude, and the contrast between the two is a match we couldn't have thought of but seems perfectly natural.
What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!