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Praetorian Reviewed At ComixTreme
Thu, 30 July 2009 by Huckleberry
This is a decent supernatural-tinged murder mystery/conspiracy story that does seem kind of familiar in spite of itself. Our protagonist, Rodriguez, is an exceedingly attractive cop on the trail of a serial killer who seems to like taking the victim's heads, for some unknown reason. While investigating the few leads she has, she requests help from a college professor whose knowledge of ancient history is unparalleled. But he acts a bit suspiciously, tripping her internal alarms, and investigating him, she discovers he's tied to a quartet of Roman soldiers who've been existing ageless since the time of Christ, and the murders are connected to this group. There are numerous twist and turns, about half of which I saw coming long before they showed up, and the religious overlay of the story is really minor (which could be good or bad, depending on your feelings about these things).
Does this sound a little familiar to you too? The religious conspiracy/ancient secret thing seems to have been a fiction meme for a while, ever since the DaVinci Code sold a billion copies (poor Rex Mundi, the superior comic version of a religious conspiracy story, which always gets forgotten and lost by virtue of being a comic). This is better written than the DaVinci Code, but that's not difficult.
It moves well, for all its familiarity, and people who are into this particular branch of the mystery/conspiracy genre will find much to like about it. Even people who like serial killer stories will be pleased by the gruesomeness and the horror story like appearance of our big bad guy. There are a couple of plot holes, though, and on a personal note, any story that brings up "destiny" or takes it perfectly seriously is going to get an eye roll from me. What can I say, I'm a bitter sod. Also, the banter between Rodriguez and Petrillo, her cop partner, was a bit overdone for my tastes. The ending of the story suggests a sequel might be on track.
The art is brightly colored and generally appealing, but cartoonish in styling, especially in the faces, which I found distracting at times. Mainly with the men; then male faces have all sorts of superfluous wrinkling that I found a bit odd. Otherwise it looks really good.
People who love religious mystery conspiracy dramas will want to give this one a look. It's a solid (if not necessarily earthshaking) addition to the genre.
