Review: Analog #2

Don“t you hate it when you“re trying to talk to your dad and a goon squad of hired muscle breaks in to take you down? What? That doesn“t happen to you? Me either. It doesn“t seem out of the ordinary to either Jack McGinnis or his father, however.

Analog is shaping up to be something I never expected: funny. As much as it is a near-future neo-noir story about crime syndicates using bagmen to deliver hard copies of their secrets in a world where there is not privacy or security on the internet, filled with hitmen in every shadow, it is a comedy too. A dark, violent and twisted comedy, but fun and funny nonetheless.

McGinnis has a secret. The former NSA man and criminal for hire, is the man who broke all the security on the internet in order to save the world a worse fate from a tech startup. He is the reason that anyone who wants to keep a secret has to use pen and paper. Now he works as a Ledger Man, someone who delivers the secrets from one crime family to another.

And now the federal government wants to get back in his life. Jack doesn“t really have the choice to say no.

Gerry Duggan (Infinity Countdown, Deadpool, Amazing Spider-Man) seems to be having a great deal of fun with this story and it shows. Not only in the characters sarcastic dialogues, but in McGinnis“ self-aware and never-ending internal monologues. Both the writer and the character are aware of the nature of the story“s premise.

Duggan isn“t the only one having fun. David O“Sullivan (Crimson Blade) knows when to keep the scenes dramatic and when he can throw in the ridiculous. He does it in both obvious and subtle ways. Go back and look at the detail work in many of the scenes and you“ll find O“Sullivan“s jokes and visual puns hidden in the dark and stormy nights.

Despite the jokes, you“ll know that there is a serious story being told here. In a world where it is ever more difficult to have any secrets people will go to extreme lengths to protect the ones they have. Their enemies will go further to find them out.

As in a classic noir tale, McGinnis is playing all sides against each other in the hopes that he can come out of this alive, even if his face is being rearranged in all of the fights he seems to lose.

This is truly a fun story and if you missed the first issue, it would be worth your while to dig through the back issues in your local comic store to pick it up along with this one. Then sit back with a glass of your favorite drink to enjoy the story.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Writer:: Gerry Duggan
Artist: David O“Sullivan
Colorist: Geordie Bellaire
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Image Comics

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Andy Hall

Sent from the future by our Robot Ape overlords to preserve the timeline. Reading and writing about comics until the revolution comes. All hail the Orangutan Android Solar King!