Oh, good grief. I almost feel silly reading it. I’m really hoping Leah Moore and John Reppion’s foreshadowing of Mycroft being Moriarty is inadvertent or just silly business instead of their actual plans for the series. I imagine it’ll be back, with more lame references to World War I possibly. The book actually saddens me a little, with the minor references to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen–it only introduces comparisons between Moore and her father and she comes up short.

I’m a little put out, given the $3.50 price tag per issue and Dynamite’s generally fine track record so far–I mean, they put out Battlefields, it’s hard to believe they’d let this nonsense out of the stable. Moore and Reppion don’t bring anything new to Sherlock Holmes, nothing movies in the 1930s weren’t already doing.

Except, I suppose, they weren’t ripping off the The Untouchables–turning Watson into an action hero.

This issue’s lettering has a particular understanding of punctuation. It’s rather annoying, while also being incorrect.

Worse, in a terribly paced series overall, this issue serves no purpose but to promise us the final issue–but I find it unlikely it’ll deliver the promised “Trial of Sherlock Holmes.” Instead, I’m guessing it’ll be some speedy and cute resolution.

And even though Holmes appears in more panels this issue, I think, than any other so far, he’s still a subplot in his own book. Moore and Reppion seem far more interested in their undoubtedly clever mystery than characters, but they’re also not playing fair with the mystery.

From the start, the reader hasn’t been given all the information. I’m not suggesting the reader has to be able to solve it–Conan Doyle didn’t follow that practice–but when you show Watson reading instructions and don’t reveal them?

You’re just plain cheating.

Perhaps I’m just a little worn down, but I found this issue a lot better. Unfortunately, I know it really isn’t much better–Holmes is still a minor character in his own book and the thing’s way too full with lots of foreshadowing, cameos and sensationalism. But I’ve come to accept the book’s not going to be perfect–or particularly good and I’ve accepted it–I can enjoy the reading experience to some degree now.

A limited one, of course, because it’s an intentionally confusing issue with a lot of storytelling devices at play to allow for the “fullest” issue possible.

What’s missing is charm. The comic makes Holmes the protagonist and “good guy” because it’s easy to, especially in comics and even more especially when the book’s named after the good guy hero. Holmes is a fun character, an erudite pulp hero, there’s too much Sturm und Drang here.

The second issue is an improvement overall, but there are still a lot of problems. Aaron Campbell’s period art is good (if static) and better when he’s not illustrating the principles. There’s something boring about his art during the scenes with Watson or Lestrade, but exciting when it’s absolute strangers.

Leah Moore and John Reppion can’t help laying in the foreshadowing–Lestrade’s boss has it out for Holmes for some unknown reason–and it doesn’t help the book any. It’s Sherlock bloody Holmes and he’s barely in the book. He shows up at the beginning and the end. And there’s no progress made on the mystery Holmes purportedly committed, much less the overall one.

It’s a competently produced effort, but it’s got a lot of work to do to get engaging. Having the protagonist in jail leads to narrative problems. Just ask Ed Brubaker.

Still, there aren’t as many lame references this issue.

Ok, so, already I have problems. The visual storytelling is complicated, too complicated for a drunkard like me. I’m supposed to read letters characters are reading, not rely on their reading of said letters to impart all the necessary information. Reading said letter revealed it’s a “man dies when the clock strikes seven” mystery, which, being a comic book reader, I remember from the 1970s Englehart/Rogers Batman stuff. Maybe it was in a Sherlock Holmes too, but I don’t remember it from them.

And speaking of Sherlock Holmes–it’s a five issue limited series. Maybe a mystery an issue would have made me a little more pleasant, rather than a longwinded stretched Sherlock Holmes thing. Part of Doyle’s narrative gift was his ability to do multilayered narratives, none of which is present here.

It’s not bad. It’s just pedestrian. And I’m not wild about Aaron Campbell. His art’s too static.