Brodie's LawBrodie's Law
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Pulp Theatre Entertainment is a British Independent comic company that doesn’t seem to want to do anything but bust the industry open with quality stories. Such as Brodie’s Law, an honest to God crime thriller about life long thief Jack Brodie and one night that will bring changes into his life like he never anticipated.
On this night, Jack forces his ex-wife away from the pimp/drug dealer she is living with and returns her to their son; he then breaks into a high security lab run by the P-Fact Corp and by the end of the night is running for his life with the police looking for him for the murder of his wife and son.
The rest of his life turns into a lot more then the usual crime story, even with the standard characters you have come to expect in a good crime story. There is the good cop, Detective Harry Wade, with the bad history with Jack. There is the beautiful woman Jack kidnaps who comes to believe in him. There are the mysterious and powerful men who run P-Fact and then there is whoever framed Jack.
And in Jack, we see the angry hood that knows just who to talk to and who to hit to get the answers he needs.
The creative team has managed to build a good number of motives and ideas into the story even while conforming to what we already expect. But it is the item that Jack stole that carries the most importance in this story. It is what changes this from a standard ‘bad guy framed and on the run’ book to a good science fiction story as well.
See, the CD that Brodie stole contains the secret to shape-shifting powers that Brodie must use to get the answers he wants.
In some ways, Brodie's Law is also a good look at a psychological problem that most shape-shifting stories don’t look at. That is, when you assume someone else’s physical identity, how much of -Them- do you get in the bargain? And with Brodie, when he goes to work, he can assume not only the body but also the memory, feelings and desires of whoever DNA he absorbs. This makes the problem of keeping his own mind in control that much harder.
The weirdest part is when Brodie has sex.
The writing of Brodie's Law is wonderful on almost all counts. The personalities of the main characters are developed much better then the average in this sort of story. And Jack Brodie is a well thought out character with the sort of problems that make him all the more believable.
Alan Grant's story is actually on a level that I think is some of his best work. And the artwork of David Bircham is nothing to sneer at. With his bold and honest style he brings everything right to the reader. He can do gritty and then move right into tender with barely a flicker.
In a lot of ways, it is fun to finally see how a superpower can be both a curse as well as a gift. Here, Jack is haunted by the feelings and memories of all the people he has been. The drug is messing Jack up but he simply won’t stop using it until he has his son back again.
This is a hard-boiled gangster story at it’s heart, but it’s soul belongs to Science Fiction; it’s gritty, film nourish images set against the underbelly of London reminds me of countless movies I watched as a kid. This is what a really good Comic should do.