After the amazing Vertigo Crime entry Area 10 last month (read our review of Vertigo Crime's Area 10), my excitement increased threefold for each upcoming digest-sized hardcover. With The Executor, the premise itself indicated that Vertigo Crime was about to take another gigantic leap forward with its return to straight-up realistic crime fiction, right alongside Filthy Rich and The Bronx Kill. While it's an enjoyable read overall, it's doesn't quite continue the evolution of Vertigo Crime as I'd hoped.
The Executor follows former NHL superstar Joe Ullen as he heads back to his falling-apart hometown when he's named executor of his high school sweetheart's will after she's killed. Having not spoken to her in fifteen years, suddenly Joe is thrust into a web of crimes that somehow all tie back into his past.
The setup and tone of the book, at least initially, is superb. Writer Jon Evans laces his graphic novel debut with quick and functional character establishment and a plot that moves deftly, but not sloppily. The Executor winds up treading in unexpected places, dealing with heavy handed topics like rape and child molestation, but never feels like it's simply itching to provide some shock value. The dynamic of the story eventually suffers a little towards the end of the book, when Evans dives a little too deeply into unnecessarily convoluted plot twists and and a rather hokey final page that really sucks the wind out of The Executor's sails, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.
Even if every written page of The Executor isn't entirely up to snuff, the work of Italian artist Andrea Mutti is instantly appealing here; he handles Evans' quick scene changes expertly and never loses sight of economical storytelling. His rendition of the upstate New York trash town and its bordering Native American reservation bring out the hopelessness trappings of a town in which few of its locals ever leave. Having spent my youth in a similar black hole of Americana, I was shocked at how well a European artist could render such a barren landscape that is so decidedly American.
The Executor is a good read and one of the better inclusions of Vertigo Crime, but it's hard to justify the pricey $20 cover charge when the story essentially loses its bearings in the third act. Though, with Vertigo soon releasing the Crime line in trade paperback form - presumably at a much lower price point - there's no reason you can't hold off and check out that printing instead.
