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Greg Rucka’s new series about P.I.s, Indian casinos, missing girls and Portland, Oregon begins with a bang and unravels from there.

Dex Parios reminds me a lot of early Atticus Kodiak, Greg Rucka’s one time bodyguard character from a series of novels.  In the novels like Keeper, Finder and Smoker, Atticus is a bit of a screw up.  The plot of Rucka’s novels resolved more around how Atticus made things worse by his inability to get out of his own way.  He pissed off the wrong people, made the worst choices and just handled almost every situation completely wrong.  Somewhere along the line of novels, Atticus changed, becoming more like Jason Bourne, a man of action and adventure.  Atticus became the man who, even if his choices and emotions got in his way occasionally, had the skills and knowledge to face any challenge.  The Atticus Kodiak of Rucka’s last novel Walking Dead is a very different man than he was in Rucka’s first novel Keeper and I’m still not too sure if I like the man Atticus became.  I understand that even fictional characters need to grow up and change but I miss the old Atticus.

Stumptown’s Dex is Atticus if he had never made some of the later choices in his life.  She’s the screw up who keeps on making the wrong choices because she has no idea what the right ones are.  We see that clearly in Stumptown #1 as Rucka and Southworth introduce us to her at the craps table at the Whispering Wind casino, out of money but still trying to get a $5,000 credit line from the house to continue gambling.  Her bad luck can’t keep on lasting she figures.  She’s got to get the magical roll of the dice pretty soon.  Instead of giving her the credit, the house gives her a job; find the missing grand daughter of the casino’s matriarch Sue Lynne.  It’s a bit easy to convince Dex to take the job when Sue Lynne offers to wipe out Dex’s $17,600,016 debt to the casino.  So, like that, Dex has a job.  Her past mistakes force her down the road she now has to travel.

Stumptown #1, in many ways, feels like the spiritual cousin of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips Criminal #1 from a few years ago.  Artistically, both books are cut from the same cloth, adapting a very naturalistic style. Southworth is very much like Phillips or Michael Lark in how he clearly and simply tells the story.  Visually, Stumptown could exist in the world of Criminal or even Gotham Central.  Even Lee Loughridge’s uses colors similarly to Val Staple’s in Criminal.  Southworth’s art and Loughridge’s colors create a familiar yet new world as they recreate Dex’s home in Portland, Oregon.

In Dex, Rucka gets to explore the screw up character again, like he used to be able to do with Atticus.  Most of Rucka’s characters have their own personal issues but Dex doesn’t seem as skilled,super or as rigidly strong as Kate Kane, Tara Chase are or as Atticus has become.  Dex is almost the most normally screwed up of Rucka’s characters.  Knowing how he writes, I’m sure that there’s some dark secret to her past but for now she’s just a down-on-her-luck PI, taking extra care of her brother, trying to figure out where her next dollar is coming from.  When she’s made an offer she can’t refuse, she does the right thing and doesn’t refuse it.  She may not like working for Sue Lynne and may think there’s more here than just a missing person case but she can’t afford to say “no” to this job.  She may be screwed up but she understands that she has just enough responsibility that she can’t turn this job down.

Stumptown #1 is a solid start to this new series, literally beginning with a bang and then unveiling the story from there.  But those are only the surface elements of the story. Rucka has created a fantastic cast of characters from Dex to Sue Lynne (what exactly is their relationship,) to Dex’s brother Ansel, to HectorMarenco , an alleged gang leader who has his own unspoken interests in the missing girl.  The mystery and the action propel the story forward but it’sRucka’s strong and interesting characterization that provides the energy and life to this story.  If I missed Rucka’s Atticus once he became an action/adventure character, I’m glad to have found Dex and her screwed-up life.

Stumptown #1
Written by: Greg Rucka
Drawn by: Matthew Southworth
Colored by: Lee Loughridge

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