Archard's Agents #1
Review by Doc Ezra
Story:
Art:

Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Michael Perkins
Colors by Laura Villari
Lettered by Dave Lanphear

Published by CrossGen
Price: $2.95

My Verdict: Pass, unless you're a Ruse completist

Archard's Agents may be a bit of a misnomer for this particular issue of the title. At bottom, this book presents a look into the bizarrely silly "Aggrieved Manservants" storyline running in the main Ruse books, through the eyes of a butler going barmy and contemplating murder. Tied to this murder is yet another seemingly unconnected subplot involving a survivor of Arcadia's imperial war against the Ulandi, a Zulu-esque stand-in to provide a badguy for the imperialist tendencies of Partington's ruling class. Simon Archard appears in fewer than a dozen panels throughout the book, and the "agent" alluded to in the title is the manslaughtering manservant mentioned above. Rather than a sort of "Baker Street Irregulars" kind of story, we get one of Simon's infinitude of contacts going crazy and deciding whether or not to kill his boss.

My thoughts on the CoAM storyline are not favorable, as a whole, and this book seems like a thinly-veiled attempt to rescue the storyline from irrelevance and stupidity. Alas, it fails. Precious little that goes on in this book has a lick to do with what's going on in the main book, and is tied by only the most tenuous of threads to anything central to that book. I'm just not sure that Ruse is either far enough along or sufficiently popular to merit a weak spin-off book at this point, but nobody at CrossGen is waiting breathlessly for my opinion anyway. I'm sure time and sales figures will tell. The idea of a book following the adventures of Archard's various informants could be interesting, but it would seem that starting with one of the already established characters would have been a better idea. Ex-boxer Pete roughing up miscreants outwitted by Ophelia Pressmonk--that would be worth reading.

The art is good, so there are no complaints in that department. Even the particulars of the writing (dialogue, pacing, etc.) are good. It's just the overarching story that seems pretty damned weak. Between this spin-off and the relative weakness of recent Ruse issues, it's a worrying a trend. What started as one of my fave CrossGen titles is flailing about, seemingly having lost its way, and I hope somebody comes along and drags it back to previous quality before it's too late.

Even die-hard Ruse fans are likely to be mildly annoyed by this one, and it serves to add little to the continuity of the main book. If you think the whole villainous servant angle is entertaining/funny/not a steaming pile, then this will add a bit more texture to that plotline, though only in the most tangential fashion. Not one I'd recommend for fans looking to get into the exploits of Archard. Skip this one and pick up Enter the Detective instead if you want a nice entry point into Partington's most famous detective and his exploits.