Bog Bodies
Declan Shalvey, writer; Gavin Fullerton, artist; Rebecca Nalty, colorist; Clayton Cowles, letterer
Image Comics, 2020
Irish comics creator Declan Shalvey is probably best known as an artist, having illustrated the Marvel titles Moon Knight, Thunderbolts and Deadpool, as well as the Image Comics series Injection with writer Warren Ellis. This is a gangster story set in Ireland, like his previous graphic novel Savage Town (Image Comics, 2017) with artist Philip Barrett. That story was about a minor gangster making a play to enlarge his sphere of influence; this one has a much narrower focus.
Killian (the young gangster protagonist) has made a mistake, and is being taken for a ride up in the mountains near Dublin to the bogs, a favorite place to dump bodies. He thinks he's going to be doing the burying, but when he opens up the trunk the older gangster inside starts to shoot him. By some miracle he shuts the trunk in time, then takes off running. From this unlikely beginning (unlikely as in, probably wouldn't happen in real life) the real story begins.
He encounters a young woman in the woods (who can't remember how she got there), and after another unlikely escape they wind up at the cottage of adult gangster number two (the boy's mentor). Before long he comes there too, and the final showdown is at hand. The conclusion is inevitable. But before that happens the story takes an interesting supernatural turn, as the bog bodies of the title appear to have risen from the graveyard out back. It's very subtle, just in the background of the crime story. But it makes the deaths feel less permanent. The young mystery woman takes her place back in the graveyard as the story ends.
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