A lot of Brian Michael Bendis’ recent creator-owned projects have slipped by my immediate notice, lately, not because they don’t sound cool – a slew of revolutionaries, hit-women, and bounty hunters – but because it seems as if Bendis has receded from his place of ubiquity in American comics. This is almost certainly by design; after almost two decades as the Marvel ‘It Kid’ and a brief stint being hyped for his Superman work, Bendis spent a lot of time in the hot seat, being ridiculed and praised in equal measure. The guy deserves some time out from under the cold glare of the limelight.
Masterpiece arrives this week, seemingly without fanfare – it’s by no means Dark Horse’s most prolific release of December, being overshadowed by the more recently spotlighted Matt Kindt, several Usagi Yojimbo and Hellboy releases, and two major names in indie comedy.
Masterpiece shouldn’t be overlooked. It might not attain the mastery the title implies, but that title isn’t proclaiming its status. Masterpiece is the secret name of our main character, Emma, a name given to her by parents she has no memory of. Emma doesn’t immediately come off as a badass. Rather, she seems to be your average, attention-averse teenage girl. She certainly assumes herself to be just that, though her life is upturned only three pages into the first issue. It turns out her absent parents have a checkered past as mastermind thieves.
It seems Masterpiece is to be a heist comic. Get excited. Especially since it’s a new collaboration with frequent Bendis collaborator Alex Maleev. The team has developed a near-perfect creative synergy beyond that of a lot of artist/writer teams, springing from what may be the greatest Daredevil run of the century (oof it hurts examining that timeline). Maleev is one of the artists Bendis seems to have been born to write for.
Maleev isn’t often a bombastic artist. Even his most active panels feel like snapshots of the action, rather than the action itself – there may be the fluidity of movement, but the panels don’t feel kinetic in the way of some artists. This lack of energy doesn’t detract from the artwork; rather, it adds to the gritty realism of the narratives to which he is applied. This is photojournalism, not documentary, and that style applies to the simple moments, as well, capturing characters mid-expression in a way that cements their personalities to the reader. We understand the sort of precocious smartassery of Emma/Masterpiece as much from her arched eyebrows and smirks as we do from Bendis’ patented over-clever dialogue.
As with David Mack, another frequent Bendis collaborator, Maleev’s dynamism more often lies in design rather than action; exposition delivered over a hyper-stylized montage of Emma’s parents that simulates a sort of mod title sequence to a 1970s heist movie. It’s a shocking moment, in the middle of all this coming-of-age normalcy, and it heralds the book’s intention. It’s made all the more shocking by Ian Herring’s bold colors, which make harsh moments pop from their grounded reality, implying more action than the illustration allows alone.
There isn’t any downtime in the first issue of Masterpiece, visually or narratively; each panel sweeps the reader along, pulling them toward the next issue. It’s a book that shouldn’t slip you by. It deserves to be in the limelight.
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