The thing about trade paperbacks is that the reader gets an opportunity to read a story that decades ago would have been lost. Now you don’t have to wait for an issue to come out monthly, instead, at your leisure you are able to luxuriate in an unfolding story. Issues 1 through 6 of Fred Van Lente’s “Resurrectionists†enables you to do just that.
There is a slow build where Van Lente uses a literary trope to continually bang the reader over the head. When Shakespeare has Antonio say “What is past is prologue†you see it in context. Essentially the past has led the characters to a certain place. But in Antonio’s case in Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest†it is to rationalize a criminal act. The problem with the first issue of Resurrectionists†is that pages 4 through 50 dialogue-wise, are highly unnecessary to explain what drives Jericho Way. As an audience we get it from the title. Being incessantly tapped on the head like water torture by Way’s constant Deja Vue moments is distracting at best and if it wasn’t for the trade paperback format you wouldn’t bother with issue 2. But the artwork in between each chapter saves the feeling of irritancy you have with most of the dialogue. Juan Doe does a masterful job in art that helps connect each issue and propelling the storyline forward. It shows that more can be told without words, than a litany of utterances.
Luckily by issue 2 Van Lente rights himself by letting the artwork do most of the talking. The story becomes interesting and pulls you in as the tempo picks up. This is what this series needs, a rapid fire, non-linear perspective. Stories that are juxtaposed between the present and the past must have a jazz-like rhythm. It can’t be told in a straight line, this story needs a riff to jump-start the heart and make your pulse race. It can’t be Barbara Streisand, it’s got to be Nina Simone tinged with Miles Davis. And Van Lente nearly reaches there from issue 2 on.
With sexually fluid relationships combined with destiny and emotional dysfunction you wonder if this group will ever get it together. That’s part of what keeps you reading. Will they totally blow it again? Essentially Van Lente and artists Maurizio Rosenzweig and Juan Doe combine western elements with Egyptian lore that creates a modern day story. Ultimately it’s not about revenge or purpose. It becomes this pathworking of how not to continually keep making fatal mistakes. And to know who the true enemy is.
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