4 out of 5

It keeps cracking me up how well Wild’s End – an anthropomorphic old-timey alien invasion story – works, when it really wouldn’t be all that interesting if done with humans.  What adds to the humor is that is how little the animal nature of the characters – beyond allowing us to make easy assumptions about their general demeanor based on our generalized feelings toward particular creatures – actually impacts the story; Abnett pretty much treats events as though we’ve dealing with human beings, they just all happen to be cast by talking animals.  No, I can’t reconcile these two halves of the equation.  But the result is something genius, something that works without any forced need to convince the reader that it’s working.  If I sussed it out some more, I think it does have to do with those character assumptions, both on behalf of us and Abnett: he’s been able to fully inhabit these characters from word one, and we get the fruit of that fleshed-out writing filling in our own feelings, so the world of Wild’s End just exists.  INJ Culbard’s style – as I’ve mentioned elsewhere several times – is not really suited to humans combined with the fantastic, but the cartoonish Wild’s End cast plus the more rigidly defined lamp monsters are the perfect match for the artist, setting the tone appropriately between something whimsical and sober, sort of the stiff upper lip with a slight grin that we find in the mash-up of proper English folk and the likes of Fawkes, roustabout and ne’er-do-well and, of course, one of our favorite characters.

All of this was true in the first WE arc; it’s true even moreso in Enemy Within because we don’t even need the ramp up first issue to set the stage – we’ve picked up where we’ve left off for the most part, post-invasion, only the army has come to town and has seen fit to sequester our leads and question them on what’s what, suspecting them of either fabricating things or being mind-controlled in some way.  Hence our subtitle, as friendships and otherwise are made with their interrogators, as well as further discoveries regarding the nature of the invasion.  And along the way, Abnett and Culbard get to add some more background to our principles, endearing them to us all the more, which makes for some particularly tense moments.

If ‘Enemy’ ends up being hobbled by any aspect, it’s that it’s now even more clearly only part of something.  The first series built up to a “there’s more” conclusion, but at the same time, if the creators had left it there, it would’ve been a fun alien tale.  ‘Enemy Within,’ on the other hand, has the blanket pulled back on the threat – we know it’s out there – and so can only really add to it.  Which it does, but only on the way to a “the end” the occurs because it’s the end of the mini-series – it’s really more of a to be continued at this point.

What, I’m complaining that there’s going to be more of a series I’m enjoying?  After ragging on Hellboy for doing the ongoing thing instead of sticking with limiteds?  whimper whimper… yes?  Can we accept my acceptance of that as a conclusion to this review?