REVIEW: Abbott #3

Saladin Ahmed“s Abbott, published by Boom Studios is one of the strongest mini-series being published this year. This is saying quite a bit in a year where Extremity and Mister Miracle have been awing readers for months. But Abbott cannot be ignored in the conversations about the best books/miniseries of 2018. It is one of the most different titles on the market. Ahmed and company produce a Detroit that is steeped in a kind of mythic authenticity that allows the grime of the 1970’s “motor city”“ to formulate the backdrop for a fantastic world of light and dark, spirits and demons; those that are real and those that are created within the darker confines of Ahmed“s imagination.

Elena Abbott is a journalist for the local newspaper. And as the wonderful Wayne Barrett quote, in the epigraph of issue #3 suggests, she is a detective “for the people.”“ Abbott really is more of a detective than a journalist in this series. But she must act as both because of the entrenched structural racism in her beloved Detroit.

When a Black boy is brutally murdered and disembodied, Abbott knows that the boy“s life (or death) won“t matter enough for the local police to properly investigate his case. She is also aware that the editorial leadership at her own paper won“t allow her to spend too much of her energy (or byline) writing about the conduct of the police. One of her stand out quotes from this issue: “If the police don“t want to be described unpleasantly . . . they should display better behavior.”“

In the Detroit depicted in Abbott, Black people“s lives simply don“t matter as much as white people“s lives. It“s a brutally honest and painful read ”“ especially in a real life contemporary moment where Alton Sterling“s killers ”“ both cops ”“ will not face charges for his murder. Or in a real life moment where Stephon Clark can be shot 20 times in his own backyard by Sacramento police. This is 2018 and we are still fighting to make sure that #BlackLivesMatter.

Abbott is simultaneously a character study and a study of institutions ”“ media, law enforcement, municipal neighborhoods/communities ”“ and each of these narrative threads can be realized simultaneously and brilliantly because of the studious intentionality of the series itself. It is set in our not-to-distant past but it lives and breaths like our lived present. Abbott matters ”“ and her character and this title resonate with our times because of Ahmed“s unflinching look at racial and gender politics in our world.

Please don“t mistake the tone of this review for the tone of the book itself. Ahmed has mastered the art of painting the lighter tones with his words, even in the most dark and arcane worlds. Sami Kivela and Jason Wordie are equally talented in visualizing the complexity of Abbott“s world.

The panel layout for “Ball of Confusion”“/Abbott #3 is exquisite. There will be moments where the images or even the panel arrangements themselves will provide powerful cues to the reader that can reveal clues to the mystery in advance of the protagonist“s discovery. This is the kind of stuff that makes us feel like little kids reading our first comic under the cover of darkness with a dying flashlight. 4.5/5.

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(W) Saladin Ahmed (A) Sami Kivela (CA) Taj Tenfold