REVIEW: Eve Stranger, the final book from Black Crown at IDW
Eve Stranger was released on July 1, 2020.
By Bruno Savill De Jong — The narration in Eve Stranger is in the second person. It opens the comic telling the protagonist “your name is Eve Stranger. You wrote these words last night. You don’t remember”. So, the narration is also in the first person, a diary from a past version of Eve to update her ‘present’ self (alongside the audience) of her current circumstances. For Eve essentially only exists in the present. She is the result of the E.V.E. Project (standing for “Enhanced Vascular Emissary”, the Director admitting it’s a bit contrived), a genetically-enhanced woman whose unique blood requires a weekly antidote that also eliminates her short-term memory. This makes Eve the perfect hired-gun, blackmailed into obedience and incapable of accountability, rented out for almost any task the highest bidder requests.
This inventive premise could easily lend itself to dark tales of brainwashing and corporate-conditioning, but Eve Stranger is instead a fun and quirky take, with jokes about Eve repeatedly buying the same motorcycle with her unlimited funds, and her missions including ‘running with the bulls’ for one eccentric billionaire’s bucket-list. Indeed, one bidder who suggests having “private time” with Eve has his brain exploded via the nano-tech pills needed to access the E.V.E. Project. Eve Stranger can be gleefully gnarly but is rarely moody or grim, instead reveling in the increasing sci-fi absurdity of its boundless world, with talking gorillas and time-travelers being casually thrown in. The book does not ignore the oppressive implications of Eve’s circular amnesia, but is pop-punk instead of serious, prioritizing the cool and compelling upsides of Eve’s adventures over any morbid wallowing.
This fast-paced fun emanates from David Barnett’s pithy scripting, which maintains a frenetic speed as Eve discovers (and re-discovers) her jet-set lifestyle. Eve Stranger is confident and cool and frequently funny, often with jokes stuffed into the sides of panels as the story rushes along. This energy is maintained by Philip Bond’s artwork, which manages to be both fresh and detailed while also containing an anime-esque looseness, his figures often having perfectly exaggerated expressions. This is only bolstered by Eva de la Cruz’s impressive colors, the boardrooms of the E.V.E. Project having a sickly-green hue while Eve’s purple-pink aesthetic bursts off the page. Additionally, each issue is accompanied by a strange alternative comic of “Eve Stranger: Ace Reporter”, illustrated by Liz Price in a Sunday Newspaper Comic style. These stories ask whether Eve is an ‘ordinary’ reporter who dreams of being a secret agent, or the other way around, delivering goofy meta-humor that offers even more relief from the main stories.
Indeed, one potential criticism of Eve Stranger is that it’s a little too light-hearted and quick-paced. It feels like the book races by without enough time for character introspective or even to really explore the premise. Barnett’s story can feel too compressed, Eve Stranger having passed by without a chance to really sink in. Similarly perhaps the storytelling could have been more experimental, and try to replicate Eve’s disorienting amnesia. This is ironically easier to convey when the memory loss is unpredictable, like in Memento, instead of a weekly strategy, but the story arc in Eve Stranger seems so linear for a book which plays with memory and perspective. By the end, since we are so familiar with Eve and her supporting characters (none of whom really change between missions), it feels similar to any other ‘secret agent’ story. Although it’s hard to complain when a ‘secret agent’ story is this fun and compelling, and this critique is basically that Eve Stranger is over too soon – especially when plenty of room is left for another installment. So while it might go by quickly, Eve Stranger is a satisfying and exhilarating read that is worth remembering.
Eve Stranger Review
Eve Stranger
Writer: David Barnett
Artist: Philip Bond and Liz Price
Colorist: Eva de la Cruz
Letterer: Jane HeirPublisher: IDW
Price: Digital, $9.99, Print, $17.99
You have unlimited funds, a jet-set lifestyle, and extraordinary abilities. So what happens when you develop a sneaking suspicion you’re working for the bad guys? Meet Eve Stranger, amnesiac for hire. Eve wakes up in a hotel room without knowing who she is or how she got there. Beside her is a teddy bear, a credit card, a briefcase of cash, a used syringe, and a letter in her own handwriting that explains her next mission. She’s living week by week, undertaking different, seemingly impossible tasks on behalf of a mystery benefactor. Her bloodstream is flooded with nanobombs, and the contents of the syringe deactivates them for one week and also wipes her memory. Because every Friday morning she wakes up with a clean slate and a new job, from black ops action/adventure hero to personal shopper, scuba treasure hunter to space station saboteur.
Release Date: July 2020
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Bruno Savill De Jong is a recent undergraduate of English and freelance writer on films and comics, living in London. His infrequent comics-blog is Panels are Windows and semi-frequent Twitter is BrunoSavillDeJo.