This here is a little gem of a title by the great Warren Ellis involving a bedridden millionaire, his daughters, his porno collection and the one tape he wants immensely. A long lost porno involving Adolf Hitler and his (little fuhrer) that is worth millions to collectors and is impossible to locate. So he aquires a private detective , enter : Michael (Desolation) Jones, an ex MI:5 agent subjected to a hellish experiment to boost his stamina, which looks like an extended torture session by way of 'a clockwork orange' involving nasty tools,mysterious chemicals and a year of sleep depravation. the experiment was dubbed a failure and ultimately he was declared unfit for further work and was dumped in Los Angeles with a government pension, a bad complexion,and a sensitivity to Alcohol and the Sun. Where he sleeps for an hour a day ,stays out of sunlight and basically lays around waiting to work on his cases. One of the biggest pluses in the story other than Ellis' patented writing style is the artwork of J.H. Williams III, which is an excellent cornucopia of hallucinogenic,gripping and awesomely choreographed action, from a fight scene in a later issue with a gimp to Jones staying the night with a fellow "failed experiment" to an ex-porn star's recollection of her past experiences, each and every pages is rendered so beautifully and in some cases intimately done. hopefully this series will return one day but for now we have this cool little story to bid the time.

This issue is halfway point (sort of) of the second regular sized story arc,and each part focuses on each of the hero's day first we had Jack(part 1),Ted,the O'Dare family and Mikaal Tomas(the 70's Starman) and Solly ( a good incarnation of famed zombie bruiser Solomon Grundy) and really neither are too talkative. To be fair Mikaal has at this time forgotten english and Solly weellll he does speak but it's the same old "grundy like flower" speech. Anyways Both Grundy and Mik are enjoying a nice peaceful day outside when they are kidnapped by the Mist's henchman and are brought to an upscale apartment building to be tortured and eventually killed. The leader of this little group of henchman is Frankie Soul the son of a villain called No Mercy,that Mikaal had apparently killed in the 1970s,and he is none too happy. He and his men have pacified Grundy with a chemical cocktail full of herbicide and weed killers so the big guy can't intervene. This issue has a few little touches which make reading whole thing really rewarding such as the chemical cocktail being a foreshadowing of the Mist's meticulous planning and future assaults,another thing is the small mention of Mikaal remembering other times that he was kidnapped. The art by Tony Harris is spot-on as always, if your first real exposure to Harris' artwork from the political thriller 'Ex Machina' (like I was)then you might not know that here his art is a bit more "comic-ish" in that it's more sketchy and more like a comic book as opposed to the photographic quality work people are used  to in 'Ex Machina' but still great and with every issue getting better. Overall a solid issue but with still much much more to come.

If you ever , EEEVVVEEERRR need proof that the Mist is an absolutely bloodthirstsy, ruthless villain that could have made even some of the best villains at DC tip their hats in respect , this issue is all the proof you need. If about 32 pages she kills 3 heroes incapacitates Firestorm and does it all just to see if she could. Killing them by tripping pre-planned traps, from gassing Crimson Fox , turning Amazing man into glass and the Sprinkler bit with Blue Devil for some reason I find just darkly hilarious. It makes you wish that James Robinson used her more if he had she could have easily been  A-list. Any way if just want some pure villainy goodness just read away.