ARCHANGEL 8 #2: I Have a Bad Feeling About This

Chapter two in the story sets about establishing several other characters besides Raziel. We meet Delmar Deacon, a vicious hardened crime lord that doesn’t accept failure lightly, Raziel learns just how vicious after talking to a former sheriff that ran afoul of Delmar as he continues to track a path toward the criminal in the pursuit of his ultimate target. We are introduced to more Angels who are in fact working for the very person Raziel is tracking. We also spend time with these angels: the deadly Dee and the archangel Michael is introduced as a character.

The writing is strong and the characters, even the bit players, all feel solid and filled out and real. There’s a sense of unease and tension all through the issue that’s engaging as Raziel continues on his mission with his sense of unease growing more and more until the violent showdown at the end which leaves Raziel with the realization that things are far more complicated than he at first suspected.

The issue teases very loosely at the supernatural elements compared to the first and in fact, there are no supernatural reveals image-wise, aside from a box of eyeballs and a biblical quote the supernatural element is implied through the dialogue rather which I like as an element of the story.

The art in issue two is stronger than issue one in my opinion. feels better defined, there’s wider use of the color palette from the colorist and we get a spectrum of color ranging from moody, violent dark tones of the intro through to bright blues and greens of the day into the softer darkening tones of dusk and then into the night. There is very good dynamism in the action scenes conveying the motion and violence in the moment in a clear way. The end scene has some particularly great panels as Smith and Cortez gel even better on this issue than one.

The Jeff Dekal cover is once again a thing of glory and I feel issue two does an even better job of drawing the reader into the story than issue one.