Bring on the Bad Guys – Loki #1: Artistic Confusion

It’s always a bad sign when a major character in a story doesn’t get a name. In the case of Bring on the Bad Guys: Loki #1, that fact is just one indicator of how muddled the story is. Names should be a requirement for characters of note. At a basic level, it makes referring to the character easier both by characters and readers. A name can also convey importance and make it easier for a reader to connect to the character. Oliveira all but announces the young musician and playwright is unimportant as actual character as opposed to a device that drives both the issue’s plot and theme.

Unfortunately the failure to give a name to the second most important character in Bring on the Bad Guys: Loki #1 is just one consideration of how thin and strangely built the issue’s story is. Oliveira offers no real insight into Loki here. In fact, the reader discovers far more about the nameless victim than they do about Loki. Ostensibly Loki is supposed to be learning the cost of producing great art. It’s clear from the start that he already knows the answer so far as this story is concerned (which completely undercuts what is supposed to be a revelation at the end of the issue).

This theme of the cost of producing art seems to be what Oliveira is building his story around. The main vehicle for that theme is the unnamed musician/playwright. Bring on the Bad Guys: Loki #1’s argument seems to be that suffering produces better art than happiness. Even the unnamed musician/playwright acknowledges, as his mood improves, that his work isn’t as good. In addition to that, creating art that will be remembered is basically a soul sucking enterprise: Loki wants the unnamed musician/playwright’s best work and is willing to sacrifice the unnamed musician/playwright’s soul to get it. The reader is obviously meant to care about the unnamed musician/playwright and what Loki is doing to him, but it’s difficult to do so because it’s unclear how much Oliveira does.

The art goes a long way toward uplifting the unnamed musician/playwright (and as a result, Bring on the Bag Guys: Loki #1). Morales conveys the musician/playwright’s mood and emotions very effectively. It’s easy to see the changes via his expressions as the issue goes on. At times the character’s expressions are overly broad (as opposed to Loki whose expressions are almost always overly broad). Morales adds a significant sense of personality to him and communicates the emotion behind what might otherwise be ambiguous sounding dialogue.

These well depicted characters exist in a fully realized world. Morales delivers a high level of detail in settings and objects within them. This is especially impressive when the musician/playwright enters the theatre Loki created, the Palais Pandemonium. The character’s awestruck expressions match the opulent setting he’s entered. In this way the level of detail helps to further develop the musician/playwright.

Nitro’s coloring is a strange kind of “vivid but not.” Much of the issue takes place either at night or in poorly lit locations. But Nitro doesn’t simply make everything look dark. The original color of clothing or setting is still apparent. The result is that while the colors seldom jump off the page in brightness, they look very rich.

Lanham keeps the dialogue well organized throughout. Both Mephisto and Loki have dialogue in caption boxes and Lanham effectively color coordinates those. He also uses the specific font associated with their dialogue in their captions. And in Mephisto’s case, he inverts the coloring between the boxes (red fill, white font) and the dialogue (white fill, red font). It sounds like an obvious choice, but it is quite effective visually.