Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Toni Fejzula
Release Date: 2nd April 2014

Veil was one of the most intriguing releases last month – a close to story-less, surreal horror thriller…thing, from the mighty mind of Greg Rucka, and whilst it certainly showed promise, it needed a little more context before it could be categorised as genius or madness.

Issue #2 does not provide that context – at least, not wholly: we’re still left scratching our heads as to precisely who or what Veil is. But we are given a vague idea, thanks to a new thread involving a charlatan ostensibly hoodwinking some shady business types. How this adds context, I’ll leave to the telling, because whilst we’re not quite at the point of categorisation of the series as a whole, this issue steps up the intrigue something fierce, reeling you in as a reader. How it’ll end is anyone’s guess.

Fejzula’s art is still pretty great – he has a flair for the grotesque and arcane that’s allowed to shine in this issue, and his overall style lends the proceedings an unsettling supernatural haze, like we’re witnessing it happening through a crystal ball.

One fairly large let-down, however, is that Rucka seems to have ditched the rather entertaining learning by rhyming aspect of Veil’s dialogue since the last issue. She doesn’t say anything for a few pages, then can suddenly talk just fine. Not only does it dampen the issue’s pace, there’s also the fact you can’t help but think he could’ve had more fun with it, and thicken the mystery to boot.

Still, given that we’re not yet halfway through, and there’s still scope for this to come together in some pretty terrific ways. The intrigue, as said, is up at 11, but it’s still not striking as something you need to rush out and buy, at least until the trade collection comes out. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for this one.

Rating: 3/5.

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The writer of this piece was: Ross Sweeney