In MISSING PERSONS, available from Markosia Enterprises on August 23rd, 2021, a team of history’s most fabled thieves and convicts are plucked from time to stage the biggest bank robbery in history.
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The Details
- Written By: Liam Johnson
- Art By: Bernardo Vieira
- Letters By: Bernardo Vieira
- Cover Art By: Bernardo Vieira
- Cover Price: $17.99
- Release Date: August 23, 2021
Was It Good?
It’s okay. Time travel stories of this sort are typically told in the reverse direction, meaning the time travelers go through assorted points in time to steal money, jewels, etc.. This story has the interesting benefit of looking at that premise in the reverse.
By plucking notorious criminals out of the past, it becomes a mix of time travel adventure and The Expendables because the team is taken at or near the moment of death (except one), so failure has no impact on history. The architects of the plan have much to gain and nothing to lose. In that way, the premise is somewhat clever.
That said, there’s a nagging sense of implausibility around several points in the story. The first implausible point is the idea that criminals, in one case taken from over a century ago, would know how to function in the modern world with modern safeguards and modern technology protecting a bank. This point is even brought up by one of the team early in the volume, but the question is simply brushed aside.
When the plan is made known, you can’t help asking one basic question. If you had the money and technical know-how to invent a time machine, why bother with a bank heist at all? To be fair, there’s a revenge component against the banks that serves as a secondary motivation, but the architects could have just as easily sold the design for the time machine, making just as much money or more. In other words, the plan is clever in how it’s designed to execute the robbery, but the premise falls apart when you realize the robbery is actually unnecessary.
Next, the loose cannon of the group is Al Capone, and while his antics make for an element of danger, his presence in this team makes little sense. Capone is impulsive, violent, and a bully. The architects explain he’s there to keep the team in line, but that explanation falls flat when he kills one of the team members almost immediately. The only thing Capone provides is manufactured tension.
There are other bits and pieces of implausible plot points, but the ones listed above are the most glaring.
Besides the plot, the other down point related to the writing is the frequent grammatical and phrasing errors littering the book. Regularly, I had to stop and re-read a thought bubble or caption box and reinterpret the words to make them make sense. For the next work, Grammarly and spellcheck will help a lot to avoid this problem.
It may sound like we’re being deliberately harsh on this book. However, there is quite a lot to like about the writing style. The personal moments between Silva and Cooper feel organic and mature. The action, once the plan doesn’t go as planned, is inventive. And the conclusion ends on a hopeful note that fills you with optimism. In short, this is the type of story you can really enjoy… as long as you don’t try to make sense of it.
The art, for a B&W volume, is fairly good. The panel composition is great. Vieira did an excellent job with shading and texture. And the details in the linework are well done.
The one, minor down point on the art is the lack of distinction between the faces of some team members. There are so many characters interacting at a rapid pace, it was sometimes tough to tell who was who unless they had a distinguishing feature. Capone is the portly guy with the scar. Cooper is the only guy with grey temples. Boston is the only one with a goatee. After that, I couldn’t pick the other characters out of a crowd, and that lack of distinction created confusion, especially during the chaotic heist scenes.
Overall, the writing is well done and the art is one of the better B&W executions I’ve seen. However, the central premise strains credibility on several fronts so much that suspending disbelief becomes nearly impossible.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Warren Claremont lost his position, his wealth, and his faith in the financial system during the financial crisis of 2008. Using the money he had left and a burning desire for revenge, Claremont hired Rebecca Silva, a brilliant scientist, to invent time travel.
His plan? Pluck notorious figures from history very near to their point of death to stage a 100 Billion-Dollar bank robbery. The idea is to assemble individuals who are experts — con men, escape artists, robbers, marksmen — that are truly expendable. When the robbery is done, Claremont is wealthy again and the banks that cast him out as a scapegoat would be irrevocably damaged.
Of course, the time-displaced gang of criminals doesn’t get along, and Capone draws first blood with one of the Harmon brothers when they refuse to work with Capone the killer. Ironic.
The team gets their act together long enough to attempt the heist, but events go sideways very quickly. However, necessity is the mother of invention and some of the team make it out alive and with the money transferred electronically to their ultimate destinations. Unfortunately for Claremont and the team, the double-crossing has only just begun.
Final Thoughts
MISSING PERSONS takes the idea of thievery through time travel and turns it on its head. While the execution is filled with tense action and natural interactions, and the art is very well done for a B&W volume, the basic premise relies too heavily on suspension of disbelief that isn’t earned.
Score: 6.5/10
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