5 out of 5

I would say it must be hard to keep writing a comic book this good, arc to arc, but I think Greg has given himself a hand here by having such solid groundwork for the series, as well as, for sure, being surrounded by talented art and production folks.  Because Poison boils down to a few basic plot beats, but it doesn’t feel forced, or rushed, or slow, because – writing credit aside – of how inhabited this world and these characters seem.  So you can develop the story up to certain points and then let all of the gears you’ve put into place start moving the machine on their own.

Here we are, post Hock’s poisoning of papa Carlyle, the two families at war.  On the homestead, Stephen is proving to be not a capable leader in times of crisis, and away, Forever takes a small 4-person unit of soldier to destroy Hock’s air defenses of some disputed land, thereby allowing the Carlyle forces to attack in full and claim it, securely, as their own.  Greg’s subtle brilliance is in how both parts of this story confront the results of / fallout of betrayals of various levels – from Johanna, from Forever – with it coming to the fore completely organically.  His direct brilliance is in how edge-of-your-seat the battles are, even if you know so-and-so will survive (a letter comments on this), and in his tightly written ops room sequences, harkening back to Queen and Country days.  There are a couple of extra plotting surprises along the way, which support the feeling like we’re still scratching the surface of the Forever universe.

Rucka’s art is strong at every point here, without any of the stiffness I believe I highlighted in the last arc.  I also found it interesting that he explained in the letters that he re-used his snow technique from Gotham Central, as I remember finding it rather distracting and fake in that book, whereas the outdoor sequences here just look amazing.  It could be the assistance of Tyler Boss on inks helping the art to “sit” better with the digital layers, and/or it could be Santi Arcas’ continually impressive colors, which service multiple settings and scenes in this book, but lean toward a general “blue” for the Carlyle family, which sort of made things feel like they were going to be okay, even when they were going to hell.  A letter writer called out Jodi Wynne’s lettering, which I’ll admit I haven’t noticed much (some saying this is the mark of a good letterer), but it certainly hasn’t negatively affected page flow at any point.  I’ll probably pay more attention in the next issues (…which we won’t see until May…).

Lazarus continues to amaze in its balance of drama and action and politics and character, and twenty issues in, I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, but that doesn’t make it any less of an accomplishment.