Thursday, April 5, 2012

Casanova: Avaritia #3

Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Gabriel Bá

How nice to see that the much-delayed newest issue of Casanova shipped this week (and that the next, last issue is solicited for June).  Casanova, when the series first began years ago at Image, was my introduction to Matt Fraction, and to Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, three of my current favourite comics makers.

This current mini-series is being used to wrap up the adventures of Casanova Quinn, and those of the many people around him.  In order to stop the world (or maybe the space-time continuum) from being destroyed, Casanova, an agent of EMPIRE, has been jumping into every parallel reality to kill Luther Desmond Diamond, the man destined to become the evil Newman Xeno, leader of WASTE.  Somewhere along the way, Cass has fallen in love with Luther, so now he and his girlfriend, the time traveler Sasa Lisi are trying to save him, and still save all of space and time.

Meanwhile, Xeno, knowing what Cass is up to, has hired Kaito, a former friend to Casanova, agent of EMPIRE, and pilot of a Second World War battle robot, to hunt down and kill Casanova, alongside escape artist David X and Cass's former lover Kubark Benday.

Confused yet?  If you aren't, you will be when you read this comic, which jumps around in time and reality, and which has characters who are incapable of understanding when and where they are.

Total understanding is not necessarily important though, as the book flows well, and it's easy to just sit back and enjoy the ride.  Much of the credit for that goes to Bá, whose artwork just keeps getting better.  There are some really crazy visuals in this comic, as Fraction and Bá take us on an emotional, spatial, and temporal roller-coaster.  It's great stuff, but it will definitely read better in trade form, without the six-month waits between issues.

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