The set-up is clean and efficient: a blast of imagery from the climax of the story, where our protagonist faces dire jeopardy, then the majority of the story depicting how Ethan Reckless got to that point. As a standalone book, it may not have that same impact, although it doesn’t rely on any plot points from the first two volumes. I think it’s better than the previous two Reckless installments, but that might be because I know the characters now and care about them a bit more. How is this new volume, Destroy All Monsters? It’s good, as you would expect it to be if you have read any of their previous collaborations. They are, simply put, the consistently best producers of crime comics for the American market, and if we tend to underappreciate them in the grand comic book discourse it’s because we have mountains of issues of Criminal, Fatale, The Fade Out, and more to keep us distracted. If they were less prolific, new Brubaker and Phillips comic might feel more momentous.

He’s a troublemaker for hire, according to the press material surrounding these graphic novels, and he certainly finds his way into always seedy, quite violent, sometimes-sexy trouble.Įd Brubaker and Sean Phillips have been working together to create crime fiction in the comic book format for over two decades, and recently joined by Sean’s son, Jacob, on colors, they produce solid, dependable stories, well-told and crisp.

Ethan Reckless is not a detective, though he will conduct investigations for the right price, and he’s certainly not part of the law enforcement regime, though he does like to cause problems for the bad guys. These are standalone volumes with a recurring lead character, Ethan Reckless, a recurring sidekick, Anna, and a recurring setting of Los Angeles in the 1980s, centered around an old movie house as a base of operations for the tough-guy antics of the protagonist.īrubaker has stated that his inspiration for the Reckless series are the lurid crime paperback covers of the 1960s and 1970s with all the seedy, violent, sexy promise those covers held for readers. Here we are with the third installment of the Reckless series by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Jacob Phillips within this past year.

Reckless destroy all monsters