3 out of 5

Come for the awesomely hardcore setup, stay for the so-so anti-climactic battle sequence.

The two-part Leskovar starts with a wonderfully cinematic movie-star bang – a crashing plane, a monster, Baltimore emerging from the ruins.  It sets up its obstacle – a town full of vamps being turned by the titular Doctor – effortlessly, and gives us the grin-worthy partyline of Balt’s: that the town isn’t his problem, but it’s in his way, so he might as well deal with it.  Mignola and Golden continually give us the creeps by cutting to a horde of crabs crawling and scavenging along the beach, Baltimore approaching the town where our presumably evil Doctor is doing his thing.  It’s perfect.  The last page of issue 1, though – spoilers – tosses out a plot blip that doesn’t quite land due to the art (or art direction) – that the Doc isn’t the badguy, but rather his creations are, holding him ‘hostage’ to continue his work and eventually effect a cure.  To reference his captors, Leskovar points at a cage.  A cage containing one of his creations.  Now, yes, there are more wandering free in the city, but here the tie is made to a creature that’s clearly not a threat, and so, y’know, it doesn’t quite sell it.  But we get the point.  Sort of.  Because then the last panel just goes for B-Movie broke, with a “the only thing I had left to do…” cliffhanger that, on the tail of this other so-so reveal, also feels a little silly.  And really, it’s just to justify some big battle scenes in issue 2, that peter our with uneven pomp.

Baltimore obviously has its pulp influences, but the core story feels darker, and ‘Curse Bells’ confirmed that.  Leskovar’s Remedy feels more in the vein of the Lobster Johnson stuff; despite its perfect setup, it evolves into theatrics that, compressed into 2 issues, seem a bit rushed.  Stenbeck also tries his hand at being a bit more cartoonish with his art, here: all of the characters are very expressive, and again, this seems at odd with the overall darker flavor Baltimore had been establishing.