Precious Metal #1 Review

 

Writer: Darcy Van Poelgeest

Artist: Ian Bertram

Colorist: Matt Hollingsworth

Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Cover Artists: Ian Bertram & Tradd Moore

Publisher: Image

Price: $5.99

Release Date: June 6, 2024

 

Max hunts Mods who flee from their indentured servitude and sells them to the highest bidder. Yet he has a terrible secret and nothing to live for. What happens when Max meets a boy who could change all that? Let’s leap into Precious Metal #1 and find out!

 

Story

As a tracker, Max mixes with dangerous people. Chief among them is Elle The Blade. As Precious Metal #1 opens, a bartender slams his fist into Max’s skull to awaken him from his stupor. The bartender knows Max has a job and doesn’t want to arouse Elle’s ire by letting Max snooze through an assignment.

 

Max can’t afford to get involved with the fugitives’ lives. But he should have asked questions before taking this job. Max finds priests surrounding his quarry. The High Priest releases a boy from his constraints, and the boy recites scripture with him. Then the High Priest explodes. The violent act provokes a long-forgotten memory. The boy steps into his mind and promises Max liberation. The memory fades as the priests lock the boy away.

 

Max should capture the boy and bring him in. Instead, Max flees. Then Elle and her goons catch him. Max must fulfill his contract. But Max needs to understand what happened to him. He and Elle’s people demand that the priests bring the boy out of their spaceship. When the priests whip out guns, Max ducks gunfire, charges inside the ship, and flies away.

 

Long ago, people cared about Max. Now he's lost. He smokes, pops pills, and drinks to find peace. Nothing fills the void. This boy could destroy him. The boy could also help Max reclaim his memories and reconnect with his past. In Precious Metal #1, Max begs a favor from an embittered friend. Even though he hunts Mods, Max must convince a genetic modification designer to help him. Max braves the wrath of a powerful gangster, a church that wants to use the boy as a weapon, and a rival faction who vows to prevent the church from wielding the Human Weapon Of Mass Destruction. But Max doesn't want to be alone anymore. He’s willing to risk his profession and existence in return for a life.

 

Art

Max makes an impression, whether slumped over the bar or staggering away. He may clutch a beer bottle with tentacles, yet he's the most Human of the customers. Like plastic surgery addicts, the others display so many genetic modifications that they've left their Human appearance behind. Only the man standing on a dais clutching a knife and the clergy surrounding him look more Human than Max. Like Silas in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, the bleeding man’s body displays his desire to emulate Christ’s suffering.

 

Max clutches a gun in his Human hand and shelters behind a rock as he observes hooded priests surround a pedestal and an orb. The priests stand beneath a giant spaceship in Precious Metal #1 while stairs wind toward the densely packed buildings displaying myriad architectural styles. The High Priest removes his hood. Only a cross-shaped portion of the High Priest's face retains his Human features. The High Priest touches the orb, and it comes apart, revealing not an object on a pedestal but a boy in a robe. Then the boy regards the hovering cross of bloody meat, his expressionless features evoking the brutal Shrike in Dan Simmons' Hugo and Locus Award-winning novel Hyperion.

 

Matt Hollingsworth lavishes a loaded palette on Ian Bertram’s mesmerizing art in Precious Metal #1. Green dominates the bar ruled by the Jade Plant bartender. Blue rules the street as Max walks past the dripping disciple who dances to Cuts Like A Knife. Soft pastels color the world of tomorrow and form a backdrop for the priests and the boy. Yet his magenta tentacles make you wonder how Max could trail a target unobserved.

 

Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou modifies white dialogue balloons with large uppercase black letters that grow bold for inflection. Small, italicized lowercase letters portray lowered voices. Otsmane-Elhaou designs hand-drawn black narrative boxes with large uppercase white letters to reveal Max's thoughts and outlook. White letters evoking a kidnapper's note appear in red oval balloons. Expressive sound effects help us hear gunfights, explosions, and a priest's reaction to his superior's transcendence.

 

Thanks to Image Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

Max may be a fly caught in a web of intrigue, but the bounty hunter battles powerful factions amid genetically modified Humans in Precious Metal #1 as he seeks to discover the truth of his existence.

 

Rating 9.6/10

 

For another cover option see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.