Damned 4

Damned 4
Sep 1997

The Only Line No One Crosses
By Steven Grant, Mike Zeck

Mick fights with Yargo, beats him up pretty good before running off when Cam picks up a gun and starts shooting at him. He gets picked up by Charlotte Dahl, Bobby Crown’s parole officer.

Silver snags Cam but loses Bobby who drives off while he’s got his back to him. He gets a call from Mick who tells him to meet him at the cemetery. Mick gets a ride there from Dahl who chooses to stay out of what comes next. Yargo doesn’t feel the same and shows up in time to blow Silver away. By the time it is all over there are lots of dead bodies, including the corpse of Doug Orton.

I don’t know about the end of this story. It doesn’t satisfy me. It seems a little too neat and cute. I wanted something deeper, something more than what this story delivered. It all felt very surface level. Once again I find that I can never go home again.

Damned 3

Damned 3
Aug 1997

In the Big City and Wanted by Everyone
By Steven Grant, Mike Zeck

Mick narrowly escapes from the club. Silver beats up Yargo and then tells him to beat it, for betraying him. For a moment there I thought Mick would wind up teaming up with Yargo but it looks like that ain’t gonna happen. Cam Orton finds Mick just outside the club. She pulls up in a car and takes him back to her place. The next morning Mick wakes up to find Yargo pointing a gun at him. Cam and Yargo are an item.

Bobby gets a call from Silver and goes to visit him. After he leaves Silver senses that something is wrong and follows Bobby home. Charlotte Dahl, Bobby's parole officer is waiting for him and gets caught in the middle. Yargo and Cam are convinced that Doug told Mick where the money is hid but he refuses to spill the beans.

Not bad but not great either. I like some of the wrinkles that I’m starting to see. Still not quite as entertaining as I remembered it being. I do like the art. Maybe the story will payoff in some way in the final chapter.

Damned 2

Damned 2
Jul 1997

Dressing Up for a Dance with Silver
By Steven Grant, Mike Zeck

Mick wakes up on the couch in Bobby’s apartment. Bobby also did time at Runacre. He looked up to Mick when they were both in the slammer. He owes Mick although Mick doesn’t remember him. Talking about Runacre just brings back memories of Doug “the Thug” Orton, his cell mate and friend getting stabbed to death.

Yargo looks into Mick’s background and runs across Farage, Mick’s parole officer. Shots are fired, knives are thrown. Farage doesn’t survive the encounter, Yargo does. An investigation is launched into Farage’s death but the scene is mostly used to introduce Charlotte Dahl, another P.O.

Bobby helps Mick get his hands on a gun. Mick heads to Club Flamingo. He has a chat with Silver but when Yargo shows up it looks like things are ready to get ugly. That’s where the chapter ends.

Still not impressing me as much as it did the first time around. Mick and the rest of the cast seem like  a little too two dimensional. There’s nothing wrong with having some of that but for my money there needs to be more subtlety in the story than I’ve found in this one so far. The lack of subtlety makes the story feel like more of an exercise than a piece of art. Just my opinion, and of course.

Damned 1

Damned 1
Jun 1997

Mick Thorne / Day 1447
By Steven Grant, Mike Zeck

Mick Thorne gets out of prison after serving 4 years for murder. He made a promise to Doug Orton, his cell mate, who is now dead. Mick intends to honor that promise but there are a lot of people out to stop him.

The chapter opens with Mick getting out of prison and meeting Farage, his parole officer. He moves to a small town and takes a job working in a diner. Against orders from Farage he makes a trip to the big city (New Covenant) looking for Orton's sister. He has a message for her. He he is approached by a gang led by a man named Yargo. They are looking for some money that Orton had. Mick gets beat up when he refuses to cooperate with them. They almost kill him but he escapes. The chapter ends with him collapsing in an alley way.

I like the look of the book. It has a rougher feel to it than Zeck's work with John Beatty on Captain America did but it works for a story like this.

I bought the mini-series and first read it about 12-15 years ago. This time around I am reading it digitally. I pulled out my print copy of the first issue to read the "letters" page. Unlike the digital collected edition, there is a bit more in the way of notes from Grant and Zeck about what they were up to and how the series came to be.

So far I'm enjoying it. It isn't great but I plan to read all four chapters of the story. If I have any complaint it is that the main character (and he isn't alone in this regard) doesn't seem terribly deep in terms of personality.