
Dark Horse Comics 2019
Written by Christian Ward
Illustrated by Sami Kivelä
Coloured by Christian Ward with Dee Cunniffe
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
In their struggle to take down Al Capone and his bootleg-magic operation, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables must navigate corrupt church officials, mystically enhanced bruisers, and ruthless wizards with obscure intentions who pull the strings behind the scenes. But can Ness keep up without succumbing to his own dark side?
I love this because it's always fun to see alternate history stories and in this one we get Ness and Capone being able to do magic. Now I am not sure how many issues this is going to be, but I am guessing four, and already the way that this story is being told is utterly fabulous. The opening is everything you could possibly want and more. We see Candice bringing a dry into the Curtain Room, the most exclusive of the Magic Club's in Chicago yeah this is not only exciting and showing off a bit of the way the world is at the moment but we get to see Candice in her element and I think while we still see Ness this is all about her and the extra jolt of characterisation the fleshes her out more. It is so well done and it just makes you love her wickedness all the more!
The way that this story is being told is bloody brilliant indeed. The story & plot development that we are seeing and how it releases information to the reader is so strong and amazingly well done. Christian's writing here is beyond exceptional and this story is on point as the characters feel true to who they are while thrust into situations they'd never actually be in so seeing how they react and handle all this yeah it's just that good. This of course leads into the character development and I couldn't be any more impressed with what we see here. Capone and his ego is so much more exaggerated and that he feels he's the deal, even when there's someone, or something, else that is more powerful than he is, the dynamic is stupendous. With the pacing picking it all up and moving the story forward revealing the twists and turns and those stunning unexpected moments that hold the readers' interest.
The interiors here too are stunning. The linework that we see and how it's varying weights are utilised to create this attention to detail really makes every moment feel like a stand-out moment. I mean the clothing that they wear, the design of the suits and even Candice's suit they all have that air of authenticity. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show this strong and talented eye for storytelling. The composition inside the panels with how backgrounds are utilised and they enhance the moments, bring us this scale and size and scope to the story and importantly we see depth perception. The colour work is marvellous as well and the way light sources are utilised to create shading and shadows by utilising the colour and the hues and tones within that colour.
I love how things are done in this story. There are so many moments where we see Ness and his men and as a reader we know what is happen but the characters within the story don't so those moments are amazingly well orchestrated. Christian's way of constructing this looks like it is so complex to keep the layering in place and have all the moving parts and yet it's like a clock where it just works so well together each piece moving and keeping up with each other.
This is why we read comics to feel excited and electrified again like when we first started reading them. This whole book is a complete wow factor from the writing through the interior artwork and finished with the lettering.