By Jacob Cordas — What makes a good detective?

Is it a stylish jacket that hints at a troubled past? If so, Thompson Heller has that with his faded orange blazer that perfectly matches his perpetual five o’clock shadow. Is it a drug addiction? If so, Thompson Heller has that with his perpetual smoking and constant drinking regardless of the appropriateness of the situation. Is it the flexibility of the detective’s morality? If so, Thompson Heller has a begrudging cynicality that lends itself to the immorality he is knee deep in all day every day.

No, a good detective is judged by his mystery. Much in the way that a superhero can only be as good as the supervillian they are facing, a detective can only be as good as the mystery they need to unravel. It needs to be large scale yet somehow intimate to the character. It needs a tie in to something political with multifaceted groups playing people against each other.

By this metric (and to be fair, every metric I’ve considered) Thompson Heller: Detective Interstellar #2 succeeds wonderfully.

The mystery here centers around the death of some revolutionary mechs, robots who stand for their rights. Someone has set off a bomb that released a synthetic poison that only kills robots. All the people, all the cyborgs are still standing but Thompson Heller’s friend and leader of the Artificial Life Rights Movement, JL-B6, is dead.

It’s the perfect set-up for a science fiction detective. The script by Milton Lawson merges elements of Dashiell Hammet, Terry Prachett and Philip K. Dick to create an intimate, progressive and damn impressive mystery.

The art by Dave Chishlom with coloring by Fabian Cobos has a poppy flair to it that provides a warmth and silliness to the narrative. The brightness of the imagery helps manage the darkness of what we’re seeing. Instead of wallowing in the darkness as so many detective stories love to (as though hard boiled is synonymous with black and white), here we are presented a science fiction world that is just as bright as it is dark. The world is realer and crueler because of it.

His character designs as well deserve notice as Chishlom pulls the best parts of a 2000AD story and transforms them into humanistic relatability with his more cartoony filter. There is nothing standing in the way of your empathy. Hurt characters are hurt, and you are unable to ignore that. The cartooning heightens what we see - never detracting.

What could’ve easily been science fiction Constantine, space faring Christopher Marlowe or even Sherlock meets Alien*, this creative team instead warps into a wonderful and wounding tale of deception, hate and fear. It’s a detective story for those that dream big but don’t let their feet leave the ground with one of the best protagonists of the year.

It’s a detective story for the era that needs to know it isn’t going to be okay unless we try to make it okay. And even if it’s not, you still need to keep trying.

Overall: Thompson Heller: Interstellar Detective #2 is a great addition to the modern noir finding new corners to explore all the topics the genre is built to discuss. Hammett would be proud of this addition to the canon. 9/10

*If that isn’t already a comic book, I will be shocked.

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REVIEW: Thompson Heller - Detective Interstellar #2

Thompson Heller: Interstellar Detective #2
Writer: Milton Lawson
Artist: Dave Chishlom
Colorist: Fabian Cobos
Letterer: Damon Kane
Publisher: Source Point Press and Comics Experience
Price: $3.99
Thompson Heller, a private detective who travels the stars solving cases that have political or moral intrigue, travels to a mining planet to investigate the assassination of Elbee, an android leader of a civil rights organization for robots' rights - and also one of Heller's oldest friends. Plunged into grief over the loss, Heller, a renowned atheist, is consoled by his intellectual sparring partner Bahvi, a religious scholar and spiritual icon. As the two of them unravel the case, their romance at once deepens and grows ever more complicated.
Release Date: Nov 25, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Thompson Heller - Detective Interstellar #2