8.06.14 [#BookOfTheWeek]

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Lazarus #10 (Image): There's a small handful of worthwhile books out this week, including Moon Knight #6, Spread #2, and The Bunker #5, but my pick is Lazarus for a few reasons. First, its dark aesthetic from Michael Lark is always the right vibe, and I loved little details in this issue like the damaged Statue of Liberty or the accuracy of the medical shears in a throwaway little moment. The brilliant world-building from Greg Rucka is just so right on, the fleshing out of families as Jonah Carlyle flees to Hock territory after a failed coup against his father and sister, the dystopian propaganda the serfs and waste live in, the juxtaposition of farmed fields with an urban backdrop, and the way Jonah's privilege comes crashing against reality outside the protection of his family's borders. There's an insistence on socially relevant economic fears and resource scarcity extrapolated to their natural extremes in this script, and it really shines with the incredible restraint shown in the dialogue department. Rucka, and David Brothers' editing I think, allow so much of Lark's imagery to carry the storytelling without any pesky dialogue. If The Godfather was crime families amid a twisted disillusionment with The American Dream of generations past, then Lazarus feels like crime families amid paranoid futurism about The American Nightmare in more current socioeconomic times. With the promising "Conclave" arc impending, which will witness a massive sit-down (maybe the biggest since The Macao Accords) between the heads of all the families, this has grown to become one of the best series of 2014. Grade A+.