01 August, 2006

Mystique: Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy (Brian K Vaughan)

The more I read about comics, the more I realise I don't know. Reviews comment on the story, the art and the colouring - I'd assumed that the art and the colour were the one thing, but it seems not.

I enjoyed Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy more than I did the first Mystique volume. There were a couple of really clunky lines that made me wince ("Argh, my face is melting off!"), but overall the story was good, the dialogue was snappy, Mystique is a nicely complex character, and I loved the final frame of this volume. I also really liked the way she was drawn in this one - yeah, she's still got big boobs, but she's also very muscular, big biceps, and so on. She looks strong, as she should. Tinker, Tailor has a different artist to Drop Dead Gorgeous, so perhaps that's why I liked it better.

I think it's kind of hard to do tense storylines with Mystique as the main character, because the shape-changing thing enables her to get out of almost any situation with ease, which tends to spoil the tension a little. The virus storyline in Tinker, Tailor is done well though, and Mystique does actually get hurt, although not for long.

I find it really weird in these collections how they insert the covers of each individual comic when they begin. The covers are inevitably pin-up style stuff, and it's strange to move from Mystique in the middle of a fight to her reclining on a bed in tight black leather. Her face looks very different in the cover drawings, which bothered me - if you're going to do pin-up covers, can't you at least make it look like the character? Also, what's with the little skull on her hairline?

Overall though, despite the odd irritating moment, this was very enjoyable story - I'm looking forward to reading Unnatural, the next in the series.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

the reason that she doesn't look in the covers the same as inside the book is because the covers and the interior aren't drawn by the same artist.

Cee said...

Thanks Anon - do some artists specialise in covers, or something?