Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Incognito #4
Icon Comics (Marvel)
Brubaker & Phillips
Incognito makes its return after a couple of months break with a complex plot twist. Up until now the lead character (along with almost every character) has been virtually unlikable. In some ways you want him to do some bad things but you don’t mind watching him suffer a little bit because of the bad things he does. However, in this issue he basically goes from playing both sides to both sides playing him. He’s now hunted and he really can’t trust anyone, yet everyone is telling him to trust them. It’s a good issue that puts the lead character in a new perspective.
Zack Overkill is in trouble because his former employers aka the bad guys thought he was dead until he killed two of their own sent to check on a report that he might be alive. Now that Zack is on the radar he has all kinds of people looking to take him down. Zack starts off getting interrogated by the people who hold his boss, Black Death, in prison (theoretically the good guys). They threaten Zack to scare him back into his mousey day job and they dope him up to make sure he doesn’t do anything “super”.
As Zack is forced to live like a regular person in a boring life he begins to form his plan to escape. Little does he realize just how many eyes are on him at all times. This turn of events puts Zack in a very sympathetic role. He’s powerless and he seems like he could get killed off at any moment. I found myself hoping someone would help him when just last issue he was killing his only civilian friend albeit a scumbag.
Without spoiling it, let’s just say that enough players enter the mix by the end of this issue that it’s not clear who really wants to help Zack and who simply wants to make him suffer. Everyone appears to want to use him for one reason or another but at what point is it no longer worth it? We seem to have a real big showdown for next issue.
The artwork might be the best yet in this series. There is a huge array of characters and emotions in this comic. Perhaps the best character depiction is Zack himself. You can feel his weakness on the pages and his frailty as he speaks to the other powerless humans. He just looks beaten. The art also makes great use of various tones and shading for the faces, particularly the manipulators. Each and every one of Zack’s would-be handlers looks sinister. This reminded me a lot of something out of Sin City.
Incognito is hitting its stride in this issue as more characters are being put into action. All the while we are starting to see the masterminds unfold their overall plans. We have a great story of super heroes and super villains with plenty of layers of deceit all backed with terrific artwork. What’s not to like?
4 out of 5 geek goggles
