Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Jay Z : "Hard Knock Life"

MYSTERIA #1-11 @ Artifice Comics
Bit of background here before I get into the meat and potatoes of this review, which is what you actually came here for, correct? I read MYSTERIA a number of years ago when I first discovered Artifice Comics and to be honest the story didn't do a lot for me. But I chalked that up to my own lack of experience with the site in general and not much knowledge of Robert Flynn's writing style and so I thought no more about it.

But then, as I read more and more of Artifice's backlog of stories I found out what I think is the major flaw in MYSTERIA as a character and as a series: she's better written everywhere else except in the title that bears her name and when you have a major character who is more of a well rounded, fully explored character in every other series but her own...

MYSTERIA #1-4 is the opening arc called "Headgames" which introduces us to Victoria Burke who is some sort of businesswoman/heiress. It's hard to say because all she does is show up at her office, snap and snarl at a assistant who's only trying to do his job and then leaves because she's got to attend some fundraiser that evening. Once at the fundraiser a mysterious gent named Jackson Crowley who is rumored to be a magician/psychic investigator who is blackmailing Victoria about secrets he knows of concerning her family history accosts her. But Victoria also has to worry about The Flock, a band of female superhuman mercenaries, all based on birds who have been attacking her, apparently testing her powers and abilities. With Crowley's timely help Mysteria is able to defeat The Flock but as Victoria Burke she's still got to deal with her wobbly financial empire that has been suffering due to her nocturnal activities as Mysteria.

This opening arc has a good example of what I mean when I talk about Mysteria/Victoria Burke's characterization: there is none. In both of her identities all Mysteria does is yell and cuss at friend and foe alike. Jackson Crowley is by far the more interesting character, coming across as sardonic, slightly seedy, and definitely more morally ambiguous and his abilities are intriguing, interesting and you get the impression that he's got a lot more power than he shows here. And he has more dimensions to him than Mysteria as he demonstrates humor, anger, a sort of sleazy affection for Victoria and even a bit of fear. He also gets the best dialog which really stands out because I think Robert worked so hard on Crowley's dialog that he didn't have much left over for the rest of his characters, many who were saying lines that didn't ring true at all. One of Mysteria's more subdued insults is this gem: "You sadistic, sad-sack piece of dog vomit!" which is...unique to say the least...but seriously, people simply don't talk like this and they certainly don't resort to elaborately worded phrases such as that when a simple "Fuck off, dogshit" or "Kiss my ass" will do. For some things you don't have to burn up brain cells trying to be innovative, cute or clever and that particular scene that line came from was one of them.

#5 explores the growing attraction between Victoria Burke and Jackson Crowley as they go out on a lunch date and again, I got the impression that Robert was more interested in Crowley than in Victoria since their dinner is interrupted by a walking corpse who turns out to be a man who made some kind of deal with Crowley who apparently has the power to be able to bestow immortality of a fashion. I don't want to spoil the details as the deal made has a wonderful 'Monkey's Paw' kind of quality about it and the way Crowley explains the way that the guy should have asked for what he wanted is delightful. And yeah, while Victoria takes down the zombie, the fact is that this is more a story about Crowley and what he can do than about Mysteria or Victoria.

The next three issues are awfully confusing and after reading them twice now I'm still not sure what is going on or why. Jeffrey (Bush43) Carter is living at the Burke mansion since he's being tutored in Superheroics 101 by Alfonse, Victoria's butler who has some pretty amazing abilities and skills of his own but the two of them never meet or speak or share a scene together until issue #11. There are a number of supporting characters introduced but I couldn't make heads or tails out of what they were doing or what they wanted or what their role in the story was. And MYSTERIA never seems to have one major storyline. There's a bunch of subplots that weave in and out of the narrative with no sort of clear-cut indication of what is going on or why we should be interested.

Most of this I'm afraid has to be placed at the feet of the series primary writer, Robert Flynn. Jason Kenney joins him as co-writer with #9 but even with such a capable writer as Jason helping out, the last three issues still didn't do much for me. Robert Flynn just doesn't seem to be excited about his stories as the energy level never truly engaged me and there is a definite lack of suspense. There’s a lot of people doing a lot of things but I never was on firm ground as to what was happening and I found myself going back re-reading certain sections of some issues wondering if there were paragraphs that had been left out accidentally or if I was just not getting it. And after 11 issues I’m still not sure what Mysteria’s abilities or even if she has any and that’s not a good sign. A new reader should be able to read Mysteria’s series and find out everything he or she needs to know that’s essential to the character. As it stands now there are stories in other Artifice titles written by others that gave me more information and substance about Victoria Burke/Mysteria than all 11 issues of her own title.

And let’s not even mention the Mysteria/Victoria Burke and Alfonse who appear in “Bush43”. The difference is so great that I half suspect that Jason Kenney is writing the Earth 2 versions of the characters while Robert Flynn is writing the Earth 1 versions.

As I mentioned earlier, Jason has come aboard as co-writer and hopefully by working with Robert they will both be able to give MYSTERIA some much needed direction, purpose and just a good old fashioned kick in the ass to get the book jumping and make readers excited about it. MYSTERIA is supposed to be one of the major series as well as a major player in The Artifice Universe and after 11 issues it’s high time that she demonstrated it.