Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Crime and corruption is on the rise in Creighton, its vigilante savior ‘Black Ghost’ is dead, and protagonist Lara Dominguez is a drunk train-wreck, freshly fired from her job as a cop reporter. That’s pretty much what happens in issues #1 & #2 of the comic-book series by Alex Segura, Monica Gallagher, and George Kambadais.
I am yet to understand if this is supposed to be some dark comedic satire, because it’s not funny, and Lara Dominguez’s character is a hopeless mess, bordering on being annoyingly reckless. Girl’s got trauma from her brother’s death, okay, but why is she such a useless reporter and a totally dumb drunk vigilante wannabe?
Maybe she will get her act together in issue #5, the season finale of ‘Black Ghost’, and maybe the primary theme is about how anybody with the right intent can become a hero, even if they can’t even remember what they did last night. But she is quite unlikable in both issues #3 and #4 of the series.
Given the cover art of the issue, it’s no surprise that, without a job and story deadlines (which she wasn’t meeting anyway… gosh, I sound like a whiny prick, don’t I?) to worry about, Lara has all the time in the world, so she decides to become the new ‘Black Ghost’ and fight crime. But while the original Black Ghost’s identity remains a complete mystery, a significant number of people immediately figure out who the new vigilante in town is.
Issue #4 of ‘Black Ghost’ opens with Lara waking up from a horrible hangover, having an unexpected guest over, and finding out something tragic happened to someone else she knows, almost right under her nose. She continues to work with her digital informant ‘Lone’, who gives her a new tip-off, that turns out to be more dangerous than she expected. And when an old friend tries to reconnect with her, she smells more trouble.
While, plot-wise, the primary suspense revolves around whether Lara can gather enough evidence to expose the criminal ring running the city, solve the former Black Ghost’s murder, and maybe even get her reporting career back on track, the real tension lies elsewhere. As a reader, you cannot help but wonder whether she’ll survive long enough to do any of that.
By the end of issue #4, Lara recklessly drives straight into the villains’ den, setting up a solid cliffhanger and one pressing question: will the new Black Ghost’s vigilante career end before it even gets started? It’s going to take some serious luck to change her fate, or maybe the creators will throw in a deus ex machina. Let’s see.
The artwork remains quite engaging through the issues and is probably the strongest selling point of ‘Black Ghost’: it’s a mash of retro superhero comic book styles and more modern digital strokes. However, a new character introduced in these issues looks like a blonde version of Lara and one might think they’re cousins. Some variation in the character design would’ve been nice.
Anyway, if the idea of a reckless, perpetually drunk reporter turning herself into a vigilante hero (to be fair, Lara can absolutely kick butt) with virtually no strategy sounds appealing, give ‘Black Ghost’ a shot. Or maybe wait for me to review the fifth and final issue so I can offer a more definitive verdict. I’ll update this article with a link to that review later, but if it’s any help, I plan to publish it within a few days of this article going live.
Black Ghost is also available on Kindle Unlimited.
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