The Names
Peter Milligan, script; Leandro Fernández, art; Cris Peter, color
Vertigo Comics, 2015

The Names was a nine-part miniseries consisting of three three-issue story arcs. The story opens with a moment of crisis, as an investment banker named Kevin Walker is forced to write a suicide note and jump to his death from a skyscraper window. His wife Katya (who everyone believes to be a trophy wife, but she truly loved him) does not believe that he was depressed, despite the faked medical records. At the same time an AI program called the Dark Loops is apparently wreaking havoc on the world financial system: no one can figure out what they are up to, or indeed understand their abstract mathematical language. So this computer system angle is introduced early on, although a lot of the action proceeds independently of it. A group secretly controlling the financial markets is enough to drive much of the action, and gives rise to the series title.

Katya persists in trying to find out who killed her husband. In the process she discovers martial arts training she had not realized she had, which gets her past several violent attempts to dissuade her in her quest. Her investigations uncover not only the Names as a group, but also an individual name she can go after: Stoker. And Stoker is very interested in Kevin Walker's son Philip, a mathematical genius who might be able to understand what the Dark Loops are up to. The Surgeon, the psychopath assassin who forced Kevin to jump to his death, is hot on the trail of both Katya and Philip (who have begun working together to interpret Kevin's final messages to them).

So we have Katya and stepson Philip on the run, trying to pick up on the clues that Kevin left them. Also, Philip's mother turns out to be alive after all, and is another crazed psychopath to boot. The AI computer virus ups the ante by transmitting itself to human hosts. This creates some interesting complications, but also gives Philip a chance to use his savant-like mathematical skills to save Katya's life. He also manages to overcome his sexual fixation on her, a quasi-incestuous angle that is the sort of thing expected from Milligan (but icky just the same). There is so much frenetic action that it almost doesn't matter that Katya never does uncover who ordered her husband's murder.

Fernández captures all the chase action, and creates memorable, sometimes cartoony character designs. The Surgeon is especially over the top: everything about him screams psychopath (and the fixation on cutting everything with a scalpel was an inspired touch).  The clash between the human market masters (the Names) and the artificial intelligence manipulating the markets (the Dark Loops) never quite gels: it's an interesting idea that feels contrived. But the series is still a compelling read.

 

 

 

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