3 out of 5

This is a strip of genius before Rob starts gettin’ some high-falutin’ ideas that cause the strip to disappear up its own ass in its final third.  And he’s aware of this, and thus tries to stuff some lampshades up there also, with moderate success.

Originally serialized as three different stories in 2000 AD, separated, publishing-wise, by at least a year each – and grouped here as every 2 issues (issues 1 and 2 equal story one, and so on) – while it’s super cool to have Azrael’s tale all told together, since I jumped in to 2000 AD in its last third, it also more obviously exposes the weaknesses in the overall story.  Namely that it bites off more than it can chew, and feels like a far cry from where things started.  The seed here is the death of badman Ichabod Azrael, who’s too evil to go with the flow in limbo and has the bothersome memory of a girl he loved fueling him to return back to life…  But who would love a man like Ichabod?  And how is he able to fell demons and fight angels?  And Williams dangles these questions at us – which, fairly, does support the eventual direction the story takes – while working the underdog angle, telling us how bad Ichabod is, but showing him fighting against what seems like some might oppressive and annoying forces controlling the deathly realms.  The middle portion of our tale (initially called ‘Manhunt’) transitions us from an action-Western mystery into a bit more obvious action set pieces, and the story loses a bit of its intelligent edge as a result.  While it’s a necessary bridge, plot-wise, it feels a bit too indulgent versus the seemingly thoughtful pacing of our first arc.  It also starts to lean a bit into “loves saves the day” territory, which is ironic given that the tale starts out by sort of poking fun (acerbicly) at that trope.

And then we round the bend into part three.  Here’s the thing: if you pick up the last issue, all of the symbolism feels so heavy-handed that you can’t help but believe that Williams has established it as part of the Azrael world long ago, and so its tolerable.  And reading this stuff chronologically, the setup for the third part is excellent, the bitter end to what feels like an earned revenge tale.  It’s all the connecting pieces that give out, unfortunately.  Williams wants this to be a study on story itself, and though, as mentioned above, it’s possible that was the plan when he started, the way the story is told morphs so much in getting there that it doesn’t pan out.  The “insight” feels almost like a betrayal of the self-aware character study that was started, and makes the plot of the first couple of arcs fairly pointless, to boot.  Rob also abuses the shit out of metaphors throughout Ichabod, which at first seems humorous but then our b.s. guards start to go up when it’s suspected that he’s slinging about this laborious verbiage purposefully.  And that’s labrious limited verbiage: he brings out different variations on his ten-dollar words several times.

The story gets propped up by excellent art throughout, thankfully.  Dom Reardon’s loose pencils are a perfect fit for the strange world of limbo, and he’s wisely swapped out toward the end of Manhunt for Antonio Fuso’s angular, angry art when it seems like Reardon might’ve been falling behind and delivering some more basic art.  Pete Doherty colors these first two arcs (US issues #1 – 4); color being a big part of Ichabod’s story, with the afterlife in B&W and “life” in color, Doherty successfully makes the right elements sing.  Michael Dowling does a more realistic, detailed take on things for the last story (called One Last Bullet).  Downling’s art is awesome, and he sticks to the hatched, loose style of the series, but I wonder if the playful narrative voice Williams employs later on would’ve been more acceptable with Reardon.

Anyway, I’m giving the series a hard time, but mainly because it aims for the moon and misses.  It’s not poorly written at all, just a tad overwrought at times and then too clever for its own good as it heads toward its conclusion.  And it’s funny and exciting when it wants to be.  But – the emotional impact, I think, could’ve been mined a ton more but deciding upon a clearer voice to employ for the whole series.  Which is tough when this stuff is written over such a long period, with breaks in between, hence my comment above about how the collection might’ve exposed that flaw a bit too obviously.

Oh well.  Williams remains a fascinating writer to watch.  While his ideas don’t always pan out from start to finish, I’ve never been bored or lacked intrigue in what he’s doing.  So whenever he returns for another creator-owned project, I’ll be there to see what kind of crazy ideas he’s toying with.