Author: Jason M Burns
Publisher: Outlaw
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Ramon Espinoza
This was a comic I was handed at a comic con a couple of years ago which I read and put on a shelf and forgot about. I noticed it yesterday while cleaning off that same shelf. I read it again this morning and decided that, despite some minor issues, it was worth blogging positively.
Praetorian tells the story of four Roman guards who were present at the death of Jesus Christ, and who were granted immortality. Why? I have no idea! But you have to start a story somewhere and dumb is as good a place as any as long as you can carry a story with that dead-weight holding you back. Two thousand years later, one of these soldiers it seems, has become a serial killer, severing the head of apparently random victims and leaving the bodies to be found, while the heads disappear.
This is quite decently written except on a page towards the middle where a professor named Julian says, "...alive long enough to of broken bread with..." That's not how a professor would speak! Yes, real (and ignorant) people do substitute 'of' for 'have', but not a college professor. Bad writing!
I have to say I had some very mixed feelings about this comic. I really liked the main character, Rodriguez. She was strong, smart, and interesting. The other characters were just so-so. Rodriguez and her partner are tasked with tracking down this serial killer, but they're stymied by the apparent random choice of victim and the lack of any other evidence. The only thing they have to go on is the bizarre emblem carved on each victim's chest.
One problem I had was with the blind acceptance that there really was a son of a god crucified some 2,000 years ago. I don't buy that because none of it makes any sense, and because the only 'evidence' we have is a handful of 'accounts' all of which have a clear agenda and all of which were written by scientifically ignorant men. None of these accounts was written by a skeptic, none of them are logical or self-consistent, and none of them have any external supportive evidence. That said, I do enjoy a good religious fiction, because all religion is fiction to me.
Another issue I had was that these guards are described as Praetorian. It's become a trope in stories featuring the Romans or stories derivative of that (such as Richelle Mead's Gameboard of the Gods series, to have the Praetorians featured as some sort of antique 'special forces' unit, but they were not. They were just roman soldiers assigned to a cohort which was charged with protecting the emperor (and later to guarding Roman generals). They would never have been present at a minor crucifixion in Palestine, so this part of the story fails miserably.
There's also an unexplained anomaly during one of the assassinations - and here's a big spoiler - the serial killer is killing people of a certain bloodline, but while he kills a mom carrying her baby out to her car, he leaves the baby unharmed. Given his motivation here, it makes no sense that he would not have dispatched the baby, too.
In this case, and apart from those issues, I did enjoy this story, and the artwork was well done if a bit rudimentary. I really grew to like Rodriguez, not so much her partner, and I didn't get her attachment to him - it seemed unrealistic given what we were shown of their relationship. The story moved along at a good pace and was logical and intelligently written (except for one incident when the serial killer showed up in Rodriguez's hotel room intent upon killing her but does not. Given what we're told later, this made absolutely no sense at all).
However, like I said, the story left me with a good feeling, so I recommend it
