Fatale

• Title: Fatale #14
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Ed Brubaker
• Artist: Sean Phillips

After a series of one-offs featuring other characters, Fatale #14 catches up with Josephine during WWII where her curiosity about her unique condition leads her into Romania and, despite the warning of a woman she trusts completely, to seek out Hitler’s mystic priests known as the Thule Society.

Captured by the group, Josephine is to be sacrificed during the Convergence, but thanks to the timely arrival of a solider entranced by a map which drove his other comrades mad, the femme fatale manages to get out of Romania alive. With the punch of some sly humor and action, the comic gives us a glimpse at the series of events which led to the happiest period of her life, but not blissfully happy as the series of events inside the mountain had left unforgettable knowledge that monsters do indeed walk the Earth and they have a keen interest in her above all others.

I’ve enjoyed the one-offs, but I’m glad to see the comic pick up thread of Josephine’s story once again. Worth a look.

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• Title: Fatale #13
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Ed Brubaker
• Artist: Sean Phillips

Writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips provide a single-issue tale of another Fatale. Set in the Old West, we’re introduced to “Black” Bonnie Smith, a woman with the (eerily familiar) power to bend men to her will and a bloody past that includes the slaughter of an Indian village and dying twice before meeting a pair of men who would change her life.

Killed and then kidnapped by a Native American named Milkfred and a elderly snake oil salesman, both who are immune to her spell, Bonnie is saved from a (eerily familiar) cult who have been hunting her for days. For the first time in years Bonnie has more questions than answers and continues travelling with the unlikely pair to a lighthouse on the prairie to grab the group’s bible which may just have the answers they all seek.

Once again Brubaker and Phillips craft tale with familiar characters in new settings. I’d like a little more revelation about the cults as we see them over time, but the various protagonists continue to entertain. Worth a look.

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• Title: Fatale #12
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Ed Brubaker
• Artist: Sean Phillips

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips return with another one-shot offering us a glimpse of another fatale in 13th Century France as a young witch is tortured and burned at the stake by a religious order only to survive in the company by a hermit in the woods named Ganix.

The hermit takes in Mathilda and nurses her back to health and allows her to live with him in the obscurity of his modest home deep in the undergrowth for years before members of the order eventually find her and set a trap that’s all too easily sprung.

Mathilda’s tale is an interesting one, and I enjoyed it, but a single issue is about all that’s required to delve into it completely. The late twist works well seeing another woman like Josephine deal with her effect on the world and those who want to use her to their own ends adds to the overall story arc as well. Worth a look.

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• Title: Fatale #11
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Ed Brubaker
• Artist: Sean Phillips

Rather than start a new arc, the latest issue of Fatale offers up a single issue devoted to an experience from Josephine‘s past on the run in 1930’s California during her early days dealing with her curse.

Still unable to control her effect on men, Josephine’s journey forces her to seek out author Arthur Ravenscoft whose horror pulp story rings a little too familiar with our protagonist. In that empty old house Ravennscoft shares his own experiences with the cult and shows Josephine something which will make her flee his home in terror.

The one-off works well not only giving us more of a glimpse into Josephine’s past (and how the early days of the curse nearly destroyed her and any man who came into her path) but as an isolated horror story as well. We’re also introduced to a police man who had the unfortunate luck to encounter Josephine and become trapped under her spell so completely that her disappearance leaves him despondent with only one one way out. Worth a look.

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