Checkmate #4

Checkmate #4

DC Comics 2021

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Illustrated by Alex Maalev

Coloured by Dave Stewart

Lettered by Josh Reed

Leviathan has arrived. They have followers and agents all over the globe. What is the secret behind Leviathan’s power? The all-new…Checkmate! A collection of the most dangerous spymasters must team up to take back the world. Who is the secret hero behind Checkmate?! Guest-starring Superman!

Call me (maybe) crazy but this is what I want to read more of. Forget those sweeping so called events I want a story with substance and bite that has more twists and turns, sudden drops and amazing speed like a rollercoaster on steroids. You don’t know what’s around the next corner, the players in Checkmate play by certain rules and that means they are hindered in a few ways that Mark Shaw, who’s mysteriously stolen Geo-Force’s country, isn’t. He’s not afraid to break international law and treaties like kidnapping people and buildings to strip them apart for parts, much like car thieves are able to do. Plus we’re being introduced to characters that I would never have expected to see working for Shaw and we’re learning about possible reasons why they would be a true blue believer in his cause. So yeah this is exactly the kind of book I want to read because there’s no clear cut avenue of attack and it pushes the characters to their limits in ways that are exciting to see.

I love, love, love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances has me the most excited about how this fleshes out their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more intrigue and ambiguity of the end game become clear.

I am enjoying the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. How the layers open up new avenues and how the avenues tie into those that are already being explored add this wonderful depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are absolutely stunning. The linework that we see with its varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work that we see is astonishingly well rendered. All that linework in the Fortress of Solitude alone is mindbogglingly brilliant to witness with its patterns and then the colours within them creating this overall effect. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds but it is what it is and whether they are utilised or not we see the composition within the panels bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a rather remarkable eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a masterful eye for how colour works. How we see the shading adding depth and dimension to musculature, the faces or the clothing is fantastic.

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Yeah we get tights and capes in this book but it’s so far removed from your typical superhero fare that it’s precisely what we need to see on stands. This is so intelligently written with excellent characterisation and some killer interiors and this makes it the kind of series that we crave.