Velvet Vol. 3: The Man Who Stole The World by Ed BrubakerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Comic book stories – told in tiny little snippets, little single issue things of 32 pages at a time (well, most of the time they are around that length), later collected in volumes that collect anywhere from 3 to 10 ‘issues’ (this book here collects issues 11-15 (which would be 160 pages, though the collected book itself is only 137 pages) – can be frustrating to read. Mostly because there is a lot of interesting lead up to . . . many cliff-hangers until a, a lot of the time, disappointing finale.
And a lot of the time, you don’t know until something like the third volume, or way too often with comic story-lines – never. They just fizzle out.
Well this specific story here looked neat from the beginning. A skilled spy who was involved in early to mid-20th century spy craft before taking herself out of the field and working as a secretary for a good portion of the rest of her career. She would be, in effect, like Agent Carter after WWII – at least what the ‘men’ wanted to happen to Carter; though here Velvet took herself out, she wasn’t forced out of spy work.
The story starts after the ‘event’ that set the action in motion, so I’m not actually sure if she was a secretary, an office worker, or something more, though I know one or more men derisively called her ‘just a secretary’ along the way (which shows more their own misogynistic tendencies and less whatever her actual job function had been).
While working in the office, Velvet (which was her spy code name) uncovers some odd information. An agent had died under mysterious circumstances. Practically from the moment she started to look into it – under her own initiative, a trip-wire was sprung; Velvet was tarred as a traitor and chased.
Well, that was what volume 1 and 2 were about. The initial action that unfolded from being targeted as a traitor (volume 1), and an attempt to unravel the mystery behind the conspiracy (volume 1 and 2). Well now we are in volume 3. If I had the volume in front of me I could tell you the date the action occurred, but I don’t so . . . 1950s? 1960s? Somewhere around there. Wait, no, there is a specific historical event that has been tied into the storyline. A specific date that makes no sense for the series – at least since I’d this vague 1950s/1960s vibe; and the historical event took place in the 1970s (view spoiler). So, the long and short, the series took place somewhere around that date – (view spoiler), the early ‘70s.
Neat to see the series unfold – two parts to that 'neatness' – 1 - coherent story told over more than one volume (3 here); 2 - it’s not a superhero story, but a spy story.
And yet . . . I end up giving the book a rating of 3.25. Why? Well, partly because it had been a while since I read issues 1-10 so had to remind myself of the story as I went along, though more importantly because the story kind of fell flat. Oh, a ton of action and suspense occurred, but it still was kind of . . . flat.
Rating: 3.25
January 24 2017
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