Book of Doom:
Mysterius the Unfathomable #1
I chose Mysterius the Unfathomable #1 as this week’s Book of Doom because I was looking for something completely different to dig me out of my spandex superhero rut. And with that as my goal, it was a complete success.
I went into this with absolutely no familiarity whatsoever with either creator. I was quickly sucked in to artist Tom Fowler’s work — the scenes were elaborate and rooted enough in reality to give the story a “real life” context, but the people were drawn in an expressive way that reminded me of Will Eisner’s work at its most cartoonishly reduced (I mean that in a good way). There’s also this kind of smooth incongruity to Fowler’s lines — they’re polished and flowing at times, yet at other times they seem almost etched and labored. It gives a subtle tone difference between things like a woman’s face and a revolver.
Story-wise, it did everything it needed to hook me. Jeff Parker created an ongoing storyline by way of a shorter self-contained story that introduced the main characters, their quirks and their necessary background. The exposition came by way of an effortlessly unfolding situation rather than through conversations forced for the sake of the readers.
Delfi plays a fun surrogate for the reader, being a guide through the story that’s still relatively new to the situation. On the surface, and likely deeper than the surface, Mysterius is a kind of selfish scumbag, but there seems to be a deeper constitution to him, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that develops.
It’s rare that I turn to anything — a book, comic, album or movie — hoping it can fill a specific entertainment void and end up satisfied. Usually it’s an unrealistic expectation heaped on something that really has done nothing to deserve such an unfair precondition to enjoyment. But Mysterius the Unfathomable #1 totally did the trick for me. I’m picking this up next month.
• Doom DeLuise’s review is coming up, but first, here is guest reviewer grifter from Digital Tales of Graphic Narratives:
The first thing that caught my eye on this book was the cover art. It looked somewhat familiar. With apologies, the name “Tom Fowler” didn’t ring any bells instantly. Then it slowly dawned on me: Mad Magazine! who could not remember those big red noses? That is, if you ever read a few, gone past the usual Alfred E. Neuman cover.
“Mysterius the Unfathomable” (not really a snappy catchphrase if you ask me) is the new book from Jeff Parker (The Big Books, Marvel Adventures, Agents of Atlas) with Fowler in tow. Of course, with a name like ‘Mysterius’, you’d immediately connect it with magical stuff. And you wouldn’t be far off.
We are first introduced to our guide, Ella, now going by ‘Delfi’ (without the ‘ph’), personal assistant to the man known as Mysterius. An appointment has been made with a Mr. Ormond, accompanied by his friend Denton. Mr. Ormond has a troubling problem that entails the need for a mystic, and in mid-conversation, Ormond is surprised to find Delfi standing in Denton’s place. There we get on this fun ride as narrated by Delfi.
Delfi, in her not-too-long-ago life as Ella, worked as a reporter for The Lurker and was covering a seance in rich wastrel Vic Chesnea’s mansion. Chesnea hired Mysterius the Great to set up the seance (the sort of attention-grabbing media event rich wastrels are known for) to communicate with his mother Valerie, who shot herself months ago. Included among the guests is John Darby, professional skeptic.
After being taken off Chesnea’s personal assistant Erika, Mysterius gets down to business and asks them to join hands and begin their drive to the afterlife. Darby seems to have some previous run-ins with Mysterius, as the former heaps sarcastic comments about the latter’s instructions of holding hands and not letting go until the seance is finished, a moment that will have severe consequences later.
Utilizing the gun Valerie used to shoot herself with, as a guiding artifact, Mysterius ventures to the spirit world and finds Valerie’s wasted form trapped between bones in an ethereal mass graveyard, where souls wait for someone to take them back. Valerie, learning of Mysterius’ intent, tells him that Vic is not really his father’s son, and figures that he’s wasting her fortune on the racetrack. Mysterius professionally informs Vic that he was “much like his Uncle Edward” and that his “sporting habit is unproductive”. Vic smugly agrees.
Now Vic wants to see his mother, wanting to up the excitement of the event, against Mysterius’advice. Reluctantly Mysterius agrees, and Vic is whisked off the spirit world. He immediately regrets the move, as his mother goes nuts, thinking that he was there to retrieve her or at best, take her place. At this point, Mysterius asks a crying Vic if the whole thing was a sham, and the screaming and crying Chesnea heir adamantly states no. Darby, completely forgetting Mysterius’ instructions not to break the circle of hands, jumps up and accuses both of them of staging the whole thing. The circuit broken, Vic’s soul is swept away to the spirit world and his body is left in a catatonic state. Chaos and confusion ensues. Mysterius angrily walks out without getting paid.
Ella follows him for an interview and coincidentally is going back to Boston as well. He reluctantly agrees. She starts noticing things, like Mysterius having his own train car. Unfortunately, he sleeps through the interview and Ella is left filling her article about the seance with “snark”. And when they get to Boston, he ‘innocently’ tells her to look him up if the reporter thing doesn’t work out, before disappearing.
He turns out to be prescient as Ella is fired as soon as she gets back to work, because the pictures of the seance she submitted turned out to be pictures of her editor in compromising positions. Left with nothing but Mysterius’ calling card, which seemed to keep changing every few minutes, Ella finally manages to track down Mysterius’ office. Accordingly, she witnesses a temp, Chloe, threatening Mysterius for unpaid wages, before running out there with hope and a check in hand. Mysterius then asks her if she was taking him up now on his job offer. Ella explains the situation with the camera, and Mysterius oh-so casually dismisses that as a risk of recording mystical phenomena.
This is where it really gets weird. Mysterius invites Ella to his ‘Mysterium’, his private library and den, walking through the men’s room. Initially, they ended up on the roof, and made another attempt. Ella realizes that this “magic door” could take them anywhere they wanted to go. Is it coincidental that on the same month, “Pym Pockets” gets introduced in one of the Avengers books, running on the same concept? Your guess is good as mine.
Mysterius now explains to Ella that he has had assistants (‘Delfis’) in the past, who had complemented his work, such as increasing coincidences or enhancing spells. It has been awhile since he gained a new Delfi, and he wonders if Ella fit the bill, because of recent events. He firmly states that he would never lose a client (like Vic) if he had a Delfi. Ella, a million questions in her head but without a paying job, reluctantly agrees to a trial period. We see them walking out the ‘magic door’ to grab lunch and they appear inside a bank, where we see Chloe getting arrested, as her check is actually a robbery note, and not containing substantial dollar figures as she initially saw.
The whole flashback setup scene is long, but is quite entertaining. Parker has a gift for dialogue, especially the snarky putdowns between Mysterius and Darby. Mysterius is like your eccentric medium uncle, if you had one. Think John Constantine, but without the vices and the foul mouth and the attitude and the sex drive. Wait, that’s not John Constantine.
Interestingly enough, we get back to present, and Mr. Ormond reveals his problem – names of the past prostitutes whose services he, uh engaged are appearing on his arms like tattoos. Sounds like a case up Mysterius’ alley. Delfi agrees in taking the case, and as Ormond wonders how are they going to be in touch, and Denton reappears beside him. I dare you not to smile.
Mysterius the Unfathomable, is for me, a fathom-ably fun read.
• And finally, here’s Doom DeLuise to wrap it up:
What do you get when you take a writer who has a cliched knowledge of magician stories and combine him with an artist who can only draw misproportioned cartoonish characters?
Mysterius the Unfathomable #1, apparently.
Before I get too harsh on the artist, let me say that I think his background stuff is perfectly good, but the way he draws his characters seems kind of gimmicky, as if he’s trying to stand out by making it all look cutesy.
My main beef with this is the story, I suppose. It just seems really tired and as if its been done so many times that there’s no life to it anymore. He’s got a few goofy little lines about how they were supposed to have entered his really cool looking library or whatever, but, for the most part, those come across as undercutting this otherwise serious story.
And since the “serious” story hasn’t fully developed yet, instead of having the jokes add some levity to the situation, they just make the story seem inconsistent and unsure of what it’s aiming to be. Is this supposed to be a frightening story of magic and wizardry, or is it supposed to be goofy and charming in its silliness?
Beats me. And I won’t be picking up the next issue to find out.