Stocking Stuffer: Incognito
I read Incognito this year as individual issues and loved every single one of them. It's Ed Brubaker writing supervillains so one can safely assume that it will be awash in blood and dark psychology. In truth, while it's a violent comic it's never bloody. It's not a gore comic and the cover image of the trade paperback is both perfect and misleading: there aren't very many times we see someone beaten to a pulp but that impish smile on someone wearing a blood-stained shirt and tie is an excellent representation of the balanced and opposing themes of Incognito: the glory of freedom and empowerment as opposed to, and in concert with, the sadistic pleasure the main character takes from beating the crap out of people.
Incognito takes the usual closet-case metaphor found in the dual lives of supers and applies it to a former supervillain who has been deprived of his powers and left to rot in a soul-crushing desk job. When he goes out in search of trouble he finds himself inadvertently a hero and though he gets nothing out of helping people he loves the thrill of being back in action. Brubaker takes the standard loser-by-day-fighter-by-night concept and turns it into a fun, disturbing story that reveals false identities, origins and allegiances that have been nested inside one another three or four deep. He doesn't leave out the impact on civilians these characters have, either, giving us a delightfully bothersome cross-section of ways it can really screw with someone to run into a super who's feeling their oats.
The trade paperback comes out soon, though different sites list different dates for it. Reserve it now, it's worth making sure you get a copy ASAP. If you want to give it to someone as a gift, go for it, but be greedy: read it first.
Klarion
Posted to Preview, Trade Paperback on 4 December 2009
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