Ed Brubaker - Fatale

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Fatale – written by Ed Brubaker, artwork by Sean Phillips (Image Comics, 2012, 24 issues)

After collaborating with Sean Phillips on the crime comic Criminal, for his next project Brubaker choose a supernatural neo noir.

Fatale is about Josephine, a seemingly immortal femme fatale who is hunted by a Lovecraftian cult through the decades. Vol. 1 mostly takes place in the 1950s. Vol.2 in the 1970s, Vol. 3 are historical flashbacks of the character, Vol. 4 is set in the 1990s and Vol. 5 is the conclusion in 2014. Josephine cannot die for whatever reasons, and her curse is that she has a devastating influence over men, if she wants it or not. They do everything for her - steal, abandon their families or murder.

The story: Crime writer Dominic 'Hank' Raines dies in 2011, his godson Nicolas Lash is the executor of his will. He meets Josephine at the funeral. Lash finds Raines' first unsold manuscript from 1957 and is attacked by some henchmen. Jo rescues him, but Nicolas losses his right leg. He reads the manuscript. It is about a reporter who is clearly a stand-in for Raines in 1956 San Francisco who falls for Josephine and even abandons his pregnant wife which later gets killed. In the meantime corrupt cop Walt Booker has a cult murder to solve, a cult he met in the war and from whom he rescued Josephine who hasn't aged a day and became his mistress. But now he is too old and dying from lung cancer. The cult wants Josephine for a sacrifice and offers Booker to heal him if he betrays her. All those men past and present have fallen under Josephine's curse, and barely recovered Lash starts searching for her.

Part 2 is a LA mystery in the 1970s, parties, snuff movies, the cult, magic books and Hollywood. The 1990s arc has Seattle and grunge music as a background, as Josephine is saved by a band which she inadvertedly destroys.

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The series has a definite ending which one may like or not. Brubaker packs enough noir prose, red herrings, violence and sex into the story to make it entertaining, he even goes to the length of not explaining everything, which may work or not, depending on one's taste. Phillips' artwork is well done as usual, nailing the mood. The major problem here is the question if the series is not too long for its plot. Originally it was planned as the usual self-contained 12 issue mini series, but sales were so unexpectedly good that it was expanded to double length. If this was good for the story can be debated, as some of the material became rather familiar filler as far as genre fiction with historical flashbacks are concerned. But this is matter of taste. All things considered this is a nice horror action comic.