Publisher: Boom
Writer: Bruce Carlson
Artist: Vanesa R. Del Rey
Colourist: Nico Guardia
Release date: 10 July 2015
Price: $3.99

The four-issue mini-series Hit: 1957 starts like a noir Charles Biro story from Crime Does Not Pay comic book, circa 1950s, which is the point. Here femme fatale, Bonnie Blair is a real piece of work, a sharp dame with a nose for trouble and legs to match. Biro would be proud as she leaves carnage in her wake.

At this point things get more complicated. Bonnie worms her way into the Cleveland mafia. But after she’s kidnapped the case leads Los Angeles Police Officers Harvey Slater and Carl Haywood to Las Vegas to meet associate Riggs.

Punished/tortured as a child, Slater is a loose cannon. He doesn’t react well to the ubiquitous 1950s racism directed at Riggs and fries a man’s face on a grill for it. “Sorry, but he had it coming,” says Slater. The heavy is mobster Domino. He changed the ending for Slater and made it real. Do not underestimate him.

At one point Carlson and Del Rey starts channelling Will Eisner’s classic character bad-girl P’Gell, now in the form of thief and killer Bonnie. The layouts become very Spirit-like. She’s clueless to irony as she complains about all the “sons of bitches” in her life.

Del Rey’s stylistic and fast-paced art is detailed and tight. Interestingly the two ultra-violent face-grilling panels became suddenly sketchy, thankfully. Del Rey eliminates backgrounds by substituting blackness or dark purple when bad folks are around, making a sad commentary that only horrible people are producing light.

By the end of Hit: 1957 #3 you are left wanting to know what these horrible people, the morally ambiguous people and the good people are going to do next. Just like real life.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker