It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to write for Multiversity for the past few years. It’s exposed me to a lot of comic books that I would have never read and helped me become a better creator, and while I intend to continue writing and creating books, it seems that this will be the final full review I will write for Multiversity…at least in this form.
Anyway, let’s end this chapter with something interesting and weird with “Precious Metal” #1
Cover by: Ian Bertram
Written by Darcy van Poelgeest
Illustrated by Ian Bertram
Colored by Matt Hollingsworth
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Mini-Series Premiere. Thirty-five years before the events of Little Bird Volume 1: The Fight for Elder’s Hope, disillusioned mod-tracker Max Weaver’s routine hunt for a modified child takes a grisly and unexpected turn. Now, saddled with an unpredictable mod who may be the key to unlocking his missing memories, Max will soon find that he isn’t the only one interested in the child’s unique abilities-and if he wants to know more, it’s going to cost him everything. Eisner Award-winning creative team Darcy Van Poelgeest and Ian Bertram reunite for their gripping return to the dystopian American Empire.
Max Weaver is having a bad day. He’s a mod tracker in an unnamed city in the New American Empire who has been tasked with tracking, finding, and capturing an escaped mod and returning them to their rightful owners–or at the very least someone who is willing to pay him more for it. The problem is that this particular mod has some sort of incredible power that is incredibly destructive and incredibly illegal. It was supposed to be a simple job, but instead it plunges him into a complicated web of gangsters, dangerous cults, and memories that used to belong to him and that he wants to take back.
“Precious Metal” #1 is written by Darcy van Poelgeest and this is being billed as a prequel story to a book titled “Little Bird: The Fight for Elder’s Hope” which was published in 2020 and won the Eisner for Best Limited Series. Poelgeest is playing with a lot of the tropes of a detective noir story in this book, so if you’re even remotely familiar with this particular sub genre of crime fiction it should be pretty easy to see all the beats and make some educated guesses as to where the story is going. Poelgeest does an amazing job of crafting a world that feels familiar, yet utterly alien, which allows the reader to gaze in wonder at the incredible artwork (more on that later) while still being grounded in familiar emotions. Like any good noir the main character is in the center of a complicated web of interests, shady characters, and familiar faces who want nothing to do with him but will help him anyways, and there’s a very real sense that the answers to this mystery are not going to be pleasant, but we’re going to find out about them anyways.
“Precious Metal” #1 does have some problems, and they both have to do with familiarity. The first is that the familiar tropes of the noir storytelling tradition are so prevalent that this book doesn’t seem interested in trying anything new. The reader has probably seen the same ideas and story beats played out hundreds of times and it can feel a little reductive. If you need any proof, Weber even has a drinking and drug problem to go with a loner mentality and a lack of social graces that has alienated him from everyone who might have ever loved him, just like almost every hardboiled detective story ever written. It’s not a bad choice since it does help ground the story, but it is there. The second is that since “Precious Metals” #1 is a prequel to a different book that was published a few years ago, it kind of expects the reader to have read that story first. If you haven’t read the last book, you may feel a bit overwhelmed, although there is still plenty of stuff to enjoy in this book.
The artwork for “Precious Metal” #1 is provided by Poelgeest’s collaborator and artist Ian Bertram and is the absolute highlight of the story. While the script plays it safe and sticks to the familiar, it gives the art a chance to go off the rails and create something awe inspiring. This is a world that doesn’t feel quite human anymore, where a lot of people have genetically modified themselves into weird and fascinating shapes. Bertram displays this world with an incredible eye for detail and what can only be described as a willingness to sit for hours crafting each panel with the love and passion of someone who is obsessed with his craft and the art form. The book looks like a fever dream that was cooked up in the drug addled brilliance of the 1970’s American comix scene with a healthy dose of early Heavy Metal French comics, kind of like if the hyper detail and enhanced realism of Robert Crumb crashed into the wild imagination and world building of Moebius with a little bit of influence from what looks like an animated film from the late Soviet Union. It’s weird, it’s surreal, it’s utterly original, it’s amazing, and it’s the kind of artwork that almost makes you forget that there’s a story attached to it.
“Precious Metal” #1 is a comic book that is both incredibly familiar and not at the same time. On one hand, this is a story that we have seen before, and will see a thousand times in the future where a grizzled and tired old fighter who works at the edges of society gets thrust into a conspiracy that is so far above him it makes his head spin. On the other hand, this is a weird, fascinating, and wonderfully drawn world that looks unique and original and will leave you coming back for more.
Final Verdict: 8.6 – The familiar–but well written–story that borders on cliche is complimented by some of the most fascinating artwork you will see this year..