After an excellent opening issue, Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief is back this week with issue #2. Issue #1 was about the crew, while also establishing that the cops are tight on their trail. So tight they were getting irritated. Now it’s about whether the plan worked, though people are dead, so it can’t have gone to plan, right? Enter Everyone Loves Jewel Thief #2, which is, you guessed it, all about the plan.
Issue #2 comes right out of the gate, keeping you guessing. It opens with the detectives debating whether to arrest the crew or keep looking for clues. Writers Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell do a good job through the detective’s conversation to offer up key details, so much so that you might want to read the scene more than once. The big hook of this series is the mystery of how the heist went down, and before the story shifts to the planning, we get a little taste with key bits of info.
From there, the story shifts back to the bar where the crew lays out their plan. The big score is a diamond necklace. Layered into their conversation are conflicts between characters, like one who holds a secret over another to keep them from bugging out of the plan. Again, you’ll want to keep your attention up since key bits of info seem pertinent.
Also ongoing is the Dungeons & Dragons theme, as a bunch of these folks used to be in a party. Without the visual connecting it to these characters like the last issue, they tend to just name-drop nerd lingo, which makes it feel a little too disconnected. Still, it’s a cute element to distinguish this from other heist stories.
Art by Campbell and Jordie Bellaire keeps things interesting, particularly with a demolition derby as the setting and a rather intense race. The use of sickly greens in one scene, where a getaway car is being purchased, creates a keen sense of danger.
Possibly the best scene in the issue has most of the crew packed into a car, scoping things out, only for the truck they’re hoping to sneak into to stop right in front of them. The ragtag nature of this group and the messiness of the motley crew are definitely strong element that keeps the characters fresh and entertaining.
If it sounds like I’m not totally sold on the issue, it’s because I consistently felt like I was out of the loop. From the details with the detectives in the opening to the characters reminiscing with each other, I tended to feel like an observer missing information to totally get it. As a kind of mystery, that’s okay, but by the end, I ended up feeling too lost to really know how this is playing out.
Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #2 leans fully into the mechanics of the heist, delivering strong character tension and layered plotting, but it risks losing readers in the process. Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell clearly have a tight plan in mind, and the issue rewards close reading, though the many threads to keep track of can make it harder to stay fully engaged. It’s compelling, messy in a good way, but not always easy to follow.
