My greatest strength is that I know when I’m wrong.
In the case of Good As Dead, that moment came with issue #4, where after a decent start, I really started to see the magic and power that was unfolding courtesy of the creative team (writer Maria Lapham, co-writer/artist David Lapham, and colorist Dee Cunniffe). That issue was big and kinetic, as Sheriff David Calhoun and a litany of equally impressive folks (often more impressive, if you ask me) tackled the conspiracy behind the destruction of Port Linden’s best asset: a cool bridge.
Now, as we reach the penultimate fifth issue of Good As Dead, I’m still pretty good at recognizing when I’m wrong — and also when I’m very much right.
So, then, what exactly am I wrong about in this issue? Well, to start, the supposed “supernatural” aspects that have been hanging over this book. Without revealing too much, we actually learn that it’s not as overt as expected, as a man named Culpepper has some bizarre “abilities” that are explained well enough by not-entirely-pseudo-science. And given the grounded approach of the Laphams, I’d say this editorial decision is the best kind of “leap” forward — we get something very much like a Coen Brothers conspiracy flick circa 1976, but also with the right smidgen of weird science. And that’s seemingly a small thing, but 1) it offers a lot of visual explosiveness as Culpepper appears/disappears, which augments the momentum of a”busy” issue and 2) it keeps the focus firmly on the people (and isn’t, like, total sci-fi weirdness that might otherwise distract).
Similarly, I was wrong (-ish) about Deputy Lenore. (Sorta?) I had this hunch this whole time that, given how she was the only one doing actual police work, that she’d become the de facto hero in all this (especially since the good Sheriff has been dying/flailing this whole time). And while that remains generally true, Good As Dead #5 offers Lenore a deeply personal, deeply tragic story bent, and that makes her all the more sympathetic and engaging. It also adds the right dash of desperation and emotionality to her work in finally cracking this case, and in that way, I think it further assures her place as the most compelling force of this whole story. If you’re going to call the book Good As Dead, pushing Lenore into maximum sorrow just as the case is breaking wide open feels like they’re really teeing something major up for her.
And speaking of the case, just what exactly happens there within issue #5? Why has Port Linden suffered a great tragedy, and what does it have to do with the long-running beef between the Calhoun clan and the more established Valade family? Well, there’s one company at the heart of it, Daedalus, and they seem to be manipulating everything to gain control of the town for their own machinations. As to what said machinations are, it’s another instance of bizarre but not too much — a proper, terrifying conspiracy that goes just far enough, like the aforementioned Culpepper.
I assumed there’d be something more than just an intra-family beef, but I didn’t think it’d take this specific shape. But I’m not mad about it: I think it’s a move to further align Good As Dead with a genre (the aforementioned conspiracy thriller), and to play around or at least comment on the family dynamics and communal aggression that defines this little burg. That, and I’m curious if this means that the battling families perhaps make peace, and depending upon how that goes, I could be inclined to enjoy a story about healing in an age of marked social bifurcation. At the same time, the idea of an evil company feels cliche at this point, but at least this one feels timely as it seeks to own Linden for pure profiteering. So let’s call this one “wrong but also likely right.”
Courtesy of Image Comics.
Now, in a move that I’d call “wrong but ultimately right,” we come to Sheriff Calhoun. Across the previous four issues, this is the most meaningful page time the sheriff has received. As I’ve said before, I assumed they were minimizing his role to let everyone else really shine. As it turns out, that’s only what I wish was happening. Because even as he fights through his agonizing death — visually and emotionally, it’s when all of that struggle feels both most effective and also the most earned — part of me still doesn’t care as much as I ought to by now. I found myself wondering what was going on with Bobby or even Becky, and when they got less/no focus across Good As Dead #5 in favor of Calhoun, I felt as if we’d been robbed.
Calhoun’s “issues” clearly aren’t going anywhere nearly interesting enough. Meanwhile, Lenore is on her vengeance arc; Bobby further establishes herself as having some novel plans for the dueling families (and that fits with the evidence about how this blood feud might work out); and the conspiracy with the scientists is working out without him, too. Calhoun may look good as the bloodied leading man trying to hold onto the story’s core as a revenge saga, but that’s not what Good As Dead has become. Instead, it’s a story about how corporate greed and irresponsibility have damned daily life; how we have forsaken community for convenience, access, and power; and what happens when we think we have the story down but it’s not done carving its own path. That last lesson seems especially vital for this review, and it’s clear that this story has bucked certain tropes and trends (even if maybe it doesn’t realize that itself all the time).
So, yeah, there’s plenty I was right about and just as much that left me looking more wrong than the Mayor of Wrong Town. Which is cool: If we allow ourselves to be surprised like this, we can enjoy a more engaging story. And in the case of Good As Dead, that meant this thing that has transmogrified slowly but surely, playing against our ideas and expectations to become both a love letter to small town life, a condemnation of the increasing personification of corporations, and what happens to communities when they’re forced to take a hard look at what does and doesn’t work (and the pain of change and/or remaining the same).
I have no idea what I’ll be further vindicated and/or humbled by as we barrel toward issue #6 — the otherworldliness may increase or diminish; Lenore may not have the strength to take a larger role still; Calhoun may end up being the hero we needed (and maybe living?!); and the conspiracy could fizzle out or go even deeper. But whatever does happen, I’m not wrong in thinking that Good As Dead is an intense, peculiar ride of varying levels of power and unpredictability that we all should read with earnestness and passion.
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