Red Zone #4 // Review
It hasn’t exactly been a vacation. Randall Crane has returned to Russia. The U.S. Government asked him to go. Things have been a bit of a tumble since he’s arrived. Now, he’s had to use those skills he wouldn’t normally use as a university professor just to survive. With any luck, he’ll escape in Red Zone #4. Writer Cullen Bunn concludes the spy thriller in another issue brought heavily to the page by artist Mike Deodato Jr. It’s a dense and sharply-rendered dramatic finale to a very brief excursion into cloak-and-dagger action.
Randall Crane thought he knew who he was. Then, they started trying to kill him again. And now, he’s not so sure he knows who he really is. The good news is that the U.S. government is on the job. They’re trying to get him out of Russia. The bad news is that those who want him dead have sent another assassin out after him. This one thinks of himself as a cowboy bounty hunter, so if death comes for Randall, it will be suitably absurd when it arrives. It might be a kill-or-be-killed sort of situation. If he can survive, will Randall be able to live with himself?
Bunn has deftly fused a clear sense of tension into the final issue of the series. There are subtle complexities of characterization that rest atmospherically in the backdrop of the central story. It’s really too bad that Bunn doesn’t have as much time as he could to explore the deeper psychology of Randall and the rest of the ensemble. There’s too much work that needs to be done to maintain the forward momentum of the spy thriller. Bunn has done such a good job of making Crane seem interesting. It’s a shame that so much of his personality has to be blocked by the action.
Deodato lays out the shadowy action on an uneven grid. It’s a bit of a nerve-jangling experience. There’s a precision to it that suggests that time is running out for Crane. That sense of tension hits the page methodically in careful grids that have no business being anywhere near as engaging as they are. Even big, explosive moments fit themselves into the grid that Deodato is laying out on the page, but it is precisely that ever-present uneven grid that maintains a clever tension throughout the final issue of the series.
Bunn and Deodato have delivered a remarkably detailed world to page and panel. There’s a great deal in the script that suggests a lot more is going on than meets the center of the panel. And there’s SO MUCH in the periphery of the action that Deodato delivers. In places, it feels almost photo-realistic. It’s a fun and mysterious place to visit, but there hasn’t been nearly enough space in the four issues. Bunn and Deodato have a lot of further exploration to do into the world of Red Zone if it’s going to feel satisfying on a larger level.
