• Story: Tom King
• Art: Jorge Fornés
• Colour: Dave Stewart

Damon Lindelof proved that there’s mileage in Watchmen sequels, as long as they keep their distance from Moore & Gibbons’ 80s masterpiece. And here Tom King and Jorge Fornés introduce a suitably enigmatic mystery, shrouded in contemporary politics. Or at least it seems to be. There’s a great deal of back patting by cops and FBI agents alike for ‘saving’ someone they believe will be the next President – a ‘great man’ who appears to be a conservative candidate whom they claim to have rescued from this Rorschach. But the original Rorschach is dead, and this character is a liberal comics creator – so why does he have Walter Kovacs’ fingerprints? Why is Turley ‘great’? Nothing actually happens this issue, it’s all told in flashback, but there’s a feeling of dread, and this Rorschach’s death makes no sense at all.

Let me just say that without Jorge Fornés this book wouldn’t be even half as engaging as it is. His art style has so far tended towards the Mazzucchelli-esque, so this divergence from that to channelling Gibbons, whilst apeing the style of 70’s crime dramas is visually very rewarding. If this book is to be its own thing, its artist needs to have a distinct voice, and Fornés has that in spades. Tom King’s story introduces us to his unnamed investigator strongly as well – in a similarly casual manner to his Chris Henry in Sheriff of Babylon, and the procedural walk through his investigation of ‘Rorschach’ and partner’s deaths, with the flashback accounts which don’t add up, shows just how much this series is likely to be grounded in the politics of truth – very timely for 2020. Where the comics creators on the Myerson tape fit in (is this really going to get that meta?) is beyond me, but the tape does add to the suggestion of storytelling as a theme, and I’m curious if it’ll ever be completely clear who these two costumed characters really were or what they were doing.

It’s a quiet issue, but it’s clear that little is as it seems. Released under DC’s Black Label, King and Fornés have a relatively free hand to go where they please in the Watchmen Universe and I’m hoping for risks and surprises alike. In a universe inhabited by Doctor Manhattan I wonder if the humans are now more adept than he at bending reality. There are issues here – firstly it’s a slow read, and as I said nothing in the present actually happens. As strongly as it reads (and Dave Stewart’s restrained, grungy colour palette is ideal for this detective drama) there’s no one really to get invested in – I quite like the amount of subtext and (I assume) misdirection, but I did feel I had to fight to get into this book. The only eye opening moment comes on the very last page, which asks a lot, and given the amount of time it’s still taking for Strange Adventures to get to the point, I hope it’s an isolated occurrence.