The Killer ModusVivendi #3 (of 6) – A Review

The Killer Modus Vivendi #3 (of 6)
Publisher Archaia

Writer Matz

Illustrator Luc Jacamon

Format 27 Pages or Story and Art

Price $3.95

It seems impossible but this book just gets better and better. The first series was fantastic and is one of the books I will try and push on anyone. When someone reads it, they are impressed. This storyline just stepped it up a notch as this issue gets very, very political talking about the general human condition and all the crap that goes down with wars and how countries portray certain situations.

The Killer is in Cuba and as he approaching an official of the government he starts to think about the world and various wars they have occurred over the years.

He starts in with talking about how the US has painted Cuba, goes into testing drugs on African children by American drug companies, the French pulling out of Rwanda and allowing the Hutus to massacre the Tutsis, the genocide in Darfur, the Turks slaughter or Armenians, the slaughter of Protestants in France in 1572, the UN voting to lift the Cuban embargo by 184 -8 vote, but the eight votes won, how Castro’s Cuba has more so many doctors, reduced illiteracy and more. Much of this issue is interwoven with the assassin’s jaded view of what Western Civilizations like to call democracy.

Now I’m not so naïve as to buy off on all that is being said and I understand there are two viewpoints to everything, but just the USA’s own behavior in the last few years is nothing to write home about. Our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan is nothing short of criminal and our attacks by drones into Pakistan is pretty much universally agreed to be illegal under international law. I have always felt that all we are doing is generating the next wave of terrorists who will want to attack us or at least hate us for trying to interfere in their countries. We have spent ourselves into bankruptcy and sacrificed many off our citizens’ lives to push forth a political agenda and try to shove our viewpoint on other countries. We may have the better way of how to do things, but it does not give us the right to push the other kids around.

A huge tangent, but what this issue did is made me think about other stuff and the history of the world as I have learned it needs to be re-thought. I have always had a hard time thinking of Cuba as the bogeyman and I see what Viet Nam has become now that we have left it. The corruption that we always look at in other countries with disdain is just as deep and embedded in the US as it is elsewhere and until we have a full blown economic collapse, true change is far away.

So with this issue inspiring of all this type of thinking it still pushes the story forward as the Cuban official is going to help the Killer fake the death he was contracted for and heck he may even decide to move to Cuba. We also still see that the assassin is not some morally superior person, he is weak and in some ways as despicable as they come, but he feels very real.

The crux of the first story was the Killer getting to the point where he felt it was time to retire. This arc it seems like he started to question what was going on after getting back into the business and maybe painting himself into a corner. I wonder if he will make it out alive.

The Killer series is intelligent, thoughtful, human, intriguing, cool, fascinating, political, never what you think, always leaving you wanting more and a perfect marriage of words and pictures. A compelling series that should be on everyone’s reading list.

Overall Grade A