Nixon's Pals TPB

Joe Casey is kind of hit or miss with me (more hit than miss, actually). This original trade from Image is decent, but not great.

This trade tells the story of Nixon, a parole officer for super-villains and the mess that is his life. Nixon has all the normal problems you'd expect from a noir detective; a cheating wife, numerous people out to get him, rivals at work, etc. The package has some great parts. Many of the villains are fun, original, and punny (like Dr. Hugo Blivion). Casey tosses the reader into a fully realized super-world, and it is a grimier place than we're used to. I can't help but wonder if some of the ideas are there just to test the boundaries in an adult comic (like the stripper with faces on her chest) and the violence is ridiculous. Nixon would be dead 10x over from the damage he takes in this thing, especially if he's a normal human.

That said, Casey is a great writer and there are great bits of dialogue and the overall story wraps up like a good detective story should. Although the secondary bad guy is taken out a bit randomly.

Chris Burnham's art is solid. His character designs are strong and he does a nice job with the action panels. His quieter moments are a tad more uneven, and Nixon looks inhuman once he's sporting all those bruises. But overall the book looks nice and sports great character designs.

Fair