Chin Music #2 Review
It’s been a while since Chin Music came out. In issue #1, we were introduced to a weird prohibition-era Chicago in an alternate, magical reality where evil seems to lurk. I am a big fan of mafia literature. This book seemed up my alley. And it was.
Setting us up with quite the ending in the first issue, Al Capone was assassinated in front of a group of gangsters by an unknown party. Issue two begins with Elliot Ness investigating the murder.
In perfect prohibition-era fashion, writer Steven Niles gives us dialogue that fits in perfectly. Reading the book was easy and floated off my mind’s tongue better than anything else I read today. Niles just has a way of making things flow in a realistic manner. In addition to the dialogue, the art is great and portrays the dark tone of the book perfectly.
One thing that irked me was in the middle of the book where there was a drive-by shooting. I just didn’t get what happened there and it seemed like the book didn’t come back to it at all. I’m left baffled at this two-page sequence that seems like there should be way more to it than there is. While we may explore what happened here in a future issue, I am left to wonder how long that is going to be. Given the length of time between the first issue and this one, I probably won’t even remember this brief scene.
Furthermore, Capone’s assassin, Daniel Shaw, is being questioned by Elliot Ness. Shaw, a man who possesses some powerful and mysterious magical abilities, seems to fold and bend to Ness’s prodding at the end of the book. While this is obviously for a reason, it just didn’t feel right in context of the issue and ultimately felt cheap.
Chin Music is an intriguing read that has just enough for me to not want to give up on it. However, at this pace, it may be more prudent to wait until we get a trade before tackling this one.
Score: 7.2