Mysterius The Unfathomable 1 - 6 Writer: Jeff Parker Artist: Tom Fowler Publisher: Wildstorm Reviewed by Jamie Coville

Jeff Parker is known for writing at Marvel with Agents of Atlas and Thunderbolts among a variety of other mini series and 1 shots. Unless you've been reading MAD Magazine you may not be familiar with artist Tom Fowler. Tom's work reminds me of a mix of Mort Drucker's and Jack Davis' work for MAD. It's odd seeing that type of art for a comic book story that's not a movie / TV show parody, but it's here and it looks really good. The story is about a magician/occult expert who also happens to be a manipulating, unscrupulous cheat with little redeeming value as a human being. He's tall man, pot bellied with a big shiny nose. He meets Ella, a reporter who ends up becoming his assistant. Ella also happens to be one of those unique people that acts as a delfi, a person who for some reason has a chemistry with Mysterius, thus making his magics more potent. Ella is drawn like a normal person, she's short, African American with glasses and a big ass. Mysterius takes on a client that has a problem with unwanted tattoo's magically appearing on his body. In trying to track down the cause they come across leftover issues of a previous client that is shown at the beginning of issue 1. They end up traveling across the USA and into underworlds dimensions to unravel a mystery. Along the way we hear about previous adventures that Mysterius was in and predictably they tie into the main story. I did enjoy the dialog as this was a humourous tale with serious bits in it. The plot at several points was again, predictable. The biggest problem was the main character was unlikeable and did little to move the plot along. Tom Fowler's work was great and I hope to see more of it. The guy clearly knows what he's doing. He draws a wide variety of people of different ages, ethnic backgrounds and body types. There are also some imaginative looking creatures in there too. I give the book a 3.5 out of 5, with the plot and lead character holding it back.

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