By Steve Baxi — When I was young, I used to start every school year by making a list of every possible bad thing that could happen. I could have forgotten my books, gotten into a fight, failed a class, lost my glasses, and on and on and on. The idea was that life is a disaster waiting to happen, but the more of it you can anticipate by checking it off a list, the less devastating it feels. It transforms devastation into a plan. That thing didn’t go wrong, it's just another one off the list. While not the best way to deal with the anxiety of expectations, you do remarkably start to find some joy and kinship with the disasters around you. No one feels like an actively ruinous force, they just feel like another person caught up in their own list of things to deal with, perhaps at a different pace than you.

The Ghost in You - the fourth Reckless book by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Jacob Phillips - is largely about everything that can possibly go wrong going wrong all at once. Brubaker centers Anna, our favorite sidekick, as she tries to solve the mystery of a haunted house and in the process we experience a strong story about taking control of your life, the expectations we have for the people around us, and the bonds we form in our mutually disastrous lives. Sean and Jacob Phillips once again create a timeless feel to match Brubaker’s writing, and the result is a slightly different experience than we’ve come to expect. The book reflects Anna in the most fitting ways, and the results are a classic, efficient and enjoyable adventure from comics’ most reliable team.

Ethan Reckless is out of town on a case, and this time Anna helps solve the mystery of a haunted house for her childhood hero, Evilina. In the process, Anna becomes involved in the life of her estranged mother and we start to unpack the emotional consequences of a child who largely raised herself, and the expectations we have for our parents. Anna fantasizes about what Evilina might be like as her mother, imagining a world where her childhood aimlessness was less a bug of a poor parent, and more a feature, a way to justify and validate the life she already lived. At the same time, Anna’s mother, Sharon is described as constantly looking for the same validation in relationship after relationship, equally aimless but without accountability to her child.

Anna is told from a childhood friend that “all most people want is to get back the things they’ve lost” and for Anna, that seems to be the expectation of a stable life, something explored heavily in the previous Reckless book. Of course, nothing goes the way Anna wants as she has difficulty balancing the theater and casework, is bombarded on both sides by Evilina and Sharon, and hounded by a police officer who does not want her involved in his neighborhood. As the mystery unfolds, we learn more about what specifically Anna feels like she lost out on, and how she fills that desire with the work she’s doing at the theater with Ethan, regardless of much disaster it leads to for her, personally.

Everything that could go wrong for Anna does ultimately go wrong, and as Ethan advises her, all of us are just disasters waiting to happen. Once that disaster has settled, though. Once you check the worst things you can think of off your list, everything becomes clear again. You see straight and focus less on the possibility of failure, and more on what lies beyond that point. I always found Anna to be an enjoyable character, but as she continues to appear in these books, she’s becoming an immensely relatable character. I found myself fearing for her as each aspect of the mystery took its toll. But ultimately, the mix of triumphant puzzle solving, and childish angst created a cathartic and rich experience I was not expecting. The more things went wrong, the more Anna kept going, the more engaged I found myself.

After all these years, we’ve come to expect a certain level of mastery from a Brubaker/Phillips book, and yet somehow I always find myself in awe. Sean and Jacob Philips together create a slightly different feel for this Reckless installment. In the past, every story seemed to only exist at sunset or the dead of night, with the gritty linework of Sean Phillips being met with sometimes dreamy, and sometimes cooling Jacob Phillips colors. This time, however, we’re treated to a version of California that feels much warmer. Most of the action takes place during the day, which becomes more impressive when you put it in the contest of a possible ghost story.

Anna’s adventures are not bound up in the physicality that often accompanies Ethan, both in terms of action and in solid, anchored locations. Instead, the art works to give this story an almost deceptively fun energy, as if you’re watching Scooby-Doo before it miraculously transforms into an episode of Veronica Mars.

The Ghost in You solidifies the Reckless series as a worthy comics equivalent to the pulp adventure novels that inspired it. I cannot overstate the incredible efforts made by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Jacob Philips to release four original graphic novels at 140 pages each within months of each other over the last year. Two factors are at work here: first, the unrivaled artistic abilities and sheer speed of Sean and Jacob Phillips. And second, the practiced way Brubaker is able to tell a crime mystery as if it's in his very nature. Words cannot express how much joy I get reading each Reckless novel, and four times over Brubaker/Phillips have demonstrated their mastery of the craft.

Graphic Novel Review: The Ghost in You - A Reckless Book

The Ghost in You: A Reckless Book
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colorist: Jacob Phillips
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $24.99
The fourth book in the bestselling RECKLESS series is here! Crime noir masters ED BRUBAKER & SEAN PHILLIPS present yet another original graphic novel starring troublemaker-for-hire Ethan Reckless.It’s the winter of 1989 and Ethan is out of town, so this time, Anna has to tackle the job on her own. When a movie scream queen asks her to prove the mansion she’s renovating isn’t haunted, Anna will stumble into the decades-long mystery of one of Hollywood’s most infamous murder houses…a place with many dark secrets—some of which might just kill her.Another hit from the award-winning creators of PULP, MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES, CRIMINAL, and KILL OR BE KILLED—and a must-have for all ED BRUBAKER & SEAN PHILLIPS fans!
Publication Date: April 13, 2022
Buy It Here: Digital / Physical

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Steve Baxi has a Masters in Ethics and Applied Philosophy, with focuses in 20th Century Aesthetics and Politics. Steve creates video essays and operates a subscription based blog where he writes on pop culture through a philosophy lens. He tweets through @SteveSBaxi.