BOOM! Studios
Mark Waid, writer
Minck Oosterveer, artist
I'm on a Mark Waid kick, I guess. This is the third and fourth series by him I've read recently. But man, can that man write some truly intriquing, interesting characters!
I happened upon a 10-page preview of the initial Unknown either in some other book I was reading or maybe online somewhere. That preview introduced the situation and two main characters for this four-issue series originally published in 2010. There's Catherine Allingham, a world-famous detective known for her keen ability to crack "unsolvable" cases. We also learn quickly that she is being "haunted" by hallucinations. And we learn that the cause of those hallucinations is an inoperable tumor, which prompts Allingham to hire James Doyle to assist her with what she believes will be her last case. We see Doyle's powers of observation and his own considerable deductive skills at work when he busts a co-worker for stealing from his "friends," which is what impresses Allingham enough to hire Doyle on the spot.
After all that, I wanted to read more, and seeing Oosterveer's fantastic art on those preview pages only sweetened the deal. I've never heard of him prior to this series, but the man draws real pretty. Yet, his work has a down-to-earth quality I thought worked well with what I believed to be a grounded story much like Waid's earlier Potter's Field.
Now, in all fairness, on the very first page of the book (and the preview I'd seen), we see one of Allingham's hallucinations, and the guy she is seeing can only be described as creepy looking, vaguely vampire-like, but definitely something of a supernatural nature. That likely should have been my tipoff that things might not stay as grounded as I was expecting, but it didn't. Allingham wakes up to see this figure calmly sitting by her bed, watching her sleep. She stares at him for a beat, neither saying a word. Then she takes a few pills from a bottle on her nightstand, swallows them, and the guy fades away. Straight-up hallucination is what I thought. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
As it turns out, however, I should have read more into that hallucination. The unknown of the title refers to the afterlife, and Allingham's determination to find out what awaits her after death before she reaches that point naturally. So there is a DEFINITE supernatural element to this story. Now, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can be quite a good thing in some stories. And I in no way mean to imply that this is a bad story. But I went in expecting a grounded-in-reality story and didn't get that. SO I WAS a tad disappointed.
I was so certain I would like the story, however, based on the 10-page preview, that I didn't just buy the trade collection of Unknown, but also the follow-up trade, Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh, which opens with Doyle trying to land a job in Italy. One year has passed since the first arc, but it quickly is made obvious that Doyle has little memory of Allingham or their adventure together. When chance reunites the pair, it is also clear Allingham has no memory of Doyle, either. What's more, she is still alive and kicking despite her inoperable tumor, and is telling a new acquaintance that she has been given six months to live. Obviously, another adventure follows, this one even more steeped in the supernatural than the previous one. Again, not a bad story at all, but not what I was initially expecting from this series.
Put these down as definitely worth a read, but mildly disappointing due to my own LACK of observation skills, I guess.
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