Since taking over as Editor-in-Chief of BOOM! Studios, Mark Waid has seriously ramped up his creator-owned output, and to much success. I'm happy to say that The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh, with its second issue (of four) releasing this week, solidifies its place as the most entertaining piece of work that Waid has produced thus far at his new digs.

The Unknown follows the world's greatest detective, Catherine Allingham as she strives to solve the greatest mystery known to man before she dies in six months from a brain tumor: the afterlife. Picking up from the last four issue mini-series, The Devil Made Flesh finds Catherine with a new assitant and a wealth of new mysteries to unlock, but all are connected to her past. With the shocking cliffhanger of the first issue of The Devil Made Flesh, issue #2 picks up the next morning, where Catherine and her not-so-innocent assistant Adriana head back to the small town of Mountain Oak to continue a case that was thought to be forgotten.

Admittedly, detective stories in comics are a dime a dozen, so what the hell makes The Unknown so endearing? Well, Catherine Allingham is a hell of a character, to start with. She's witty, intelligent, and stubborn as all hell (plus, she's apparently a Queen fan). Often times when I read a detective story, the protagonist is interchangable; I could cut and paste various detectives in different stories and likely have the same result. That problem doesn't show itself in The Unknown, and Waid reminds of this with issue #2 of The Devil Made Flesh. A highlight of this particular issue's characterization of Catherine comes in the aforementioned Queen scene, where Catherine explains her reasoning not to undergo surgery for her terminal condition. She is both coldly independent and hopelessly reliant at the same time, driving readers further to see what makes this woman tick.