Last issue, we established that Molly was definitely crazy. Mark’s figured it out, too, which might not be good considering his tendency to run towards fires rather than away from them.
This week, Postal shows us what happens when the town of Eden has to deal with a new resident that might be too dangerous even for them.
Is it good?
Postal #10 (Image Comics)
The Plot
- Gotta love Mark. He calls ‘em exactly how he sees ‘em.
- Mayor Shiffron doesn’t mess around, either.
- Agent Bremble sure has a nose for this Eden case (unlike his latest informant).
- Great…as if Molly wasn’t enough of a wildcard, she’s also got a major connection.
- Of all the great verbal confrontations in this issue, Maggie vs. Molly might be the best.
- Check that. Mark’s lack of a filter vs. Molly’s lack of empathy wins the prize.
- Peanut butter crazy and a baseball bat.
Is It Good?
You’ve really got to hand it to writer Bryan Edward Hill on this issue. It can’t be easy to make a character seem particularly menacing in a town full of deadly criminals, but Molly is the real deal. Even without her casual panache for violence (which we finally get to see as it happens), her demeanor and dialogue are chilling.
The way artist Isaac Goodhart draws Molly makes her unsettling presence even worse (in a good way). Her face is soft and kind, but her eyes size up everyone she looks at like serrated knives preparing to cut through raw meat. Colorist Betsy Gonia also deserves praise for rendering the heavily shadowed scenes in a way that the pencils and character’s expressions (which Goodhart doesn’t an excellent job portraying) remain 100% clear.
The best part of the issue, however, is Hill’s dialogue. Postal #10 is basically a series of fantastic two person scenes. It’s like watching The West Wing during the Sorkin years, only the characters are discussing murder, sex, and power instead of government politics…so actually pretty similar. But you get what I’m saying. All the scenes are excellent, but getting to watch Mark speak so bluntly with a stone cold sociopath might be my favorite one in the series so far.
And then there’s that final scene.
NO! GRRR! ARGH!
Don’t get me wrong—it was a great cliffhanger, both well foreshadowed (without being too obvious) and narratively earned. But it also made me angry. Goodhart/Gonia totally go to town, ensuring that the reader feels every terrible impact being reigned down upon a character we were starting to really like. The fallout from this promises to be more explosive than anything we’ve seen so far…and when I say that, keep in mind that this is the same book where someone got lit on fire and forced to run down the middle of highway.
Just like it did after launching in 2015, Postal continues to use its great premise as a reservoir for developing even better stories. Month in and month out, this book is becoming a lock to get my stamp of approval.
(Okay, that mail pun was worse than usual, but I’m running out of material. Go buy Postal.)
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