Well, it’s definitely a predictable ending because Brisson sets it up for two possibilities. I had been hoping for a third result, but no luck. Instead, The Field concludes more visually than anything else. Brisson gives Roy something to do, but it’s not much. If it weren’t for Roy’s ability to stretch the material… it wouldn’t work out as well.
Nothing happens, of course, because Brisson goes with an all action finale. There’s no point to thinking too hard about the science–which I had sort of forgotten at the beginning exactly. Brisson deftly fills them in, then later on brings up the cultural ramifications of everyone living in Groundhog Day. And that idea is more potent than the series itself.
So, not the best finish, but well-executed from both Brisson and Roy.
It’s just too bad it doesn’t have more oomph. The protagonist is just too slightly rendered.
B
CREDITS
Writer and letterer, Ed Brisson; artist, Simon Roy; colorist, Simon Gough; publisher, Image Comics.
This issue feels incomplete. Not just because of Brisson’s plotting, but also because of the lack of grandiose art. While Roy gets to go crazy a few times, it’s always reserved in terms of space. For instance, the decapitations don’t get the page time they deserve.
The Field gets better this issue because Brisson turns up the craziness. He also gives Roy a great action sequence–the kidnapping Christian versus some elderly bikers. That action puts the comic on its own level, where something should be funny but it isn’t. There’s no humor in way Brisson writes the comic and Roy never pauses on a comic moment. So to describe the comic, it might sound like there’s humor… and there isn’t.
I have a very simple problem with stories where someone’s hallucinating or living the virtual reality or caught in a time warp and gets to repeat the same day over and over again. These stories are about the gimmick. They can run that gimmick out and be about something after it, but most don’t.