As befits a spy story, Sleeper is full of action, shootings and scams. In the previous volume, it was about power over the world. In this, Brubaker and Phillips focus on Carver to play for the highest stakes - control of your life.
What else could happen?
Miniseries on the viewfinder and the story told in the first volume Sleeper had to close the story of the Carverze and Lynch. You say a bit without the punch line? I don’t know, the supervillain’s triumph seemed like a pretty sensible ending to me. Brubaker must have thought the same thing, because the sequel tells a slightly different story.
The most obvious thing happened – Carver fell in love. We suspected him of this before, but it could have been a double agent game! In this volume, the relationship with Miss Misery is the beginning and the end of all the hero’s actions. It’s an intense and complicated relationship. This girl firmly “cannot go through the world alone”, she must scalp at least one victim every day to stay healthy and beautiful. Reading about her, I am pettyly glad that a little exercise or walks will be enough for me …
Meanwhile, Carver decides to take matters into his own hands and finally regain control. Tao, Lynch, agencies – the queue at the helm of his life is really impressive, with the subject himself thrashing at the very end. And when he pushes himself to her forehead, the whole story will completely change direction and genre …
The sleeper must wake up
Carver didn’t function very well as a mole from the start. He was too attached to people, made friends, took care of them. At last he saw a chance for himself and Miss Misery. The goal is simple: get away. Only first you have to somehow fool the master of crime and manipulation, Tao.
I can tell you so much without spoilers. We move from spy noir to heist , a story about a scam. Get ready for the classic “in-finty-in-finty” feat. Who will betray whom? Which betrayal is real? In this comic, everything has a “second, third, fourth, fifth bottom”. And only the ending turned out to be disappointingly simple for me and … sort of sexist. It is possible that in this way Brubaker wanted to show the limitations of his “mastermind”, which – in my opinion – turned out to be another bastard.
Twists and throws
In Sleeper the plot is twisted, but it also happens with drawings. Phillips sticks to the unobtrusive realism we saw in the first volume, dark tones, lots of darkness. As before, it changes the faces of the characters through all cases, until they sometimes seem grotesque and unsuccessful. I got the feeling that they were making “silly faces”, as if the camera shutter caught them half-motion, twisted. This is hardly a coincidence, unless the cartoonist is really chasing deadlines. Maybe this is also how the atmosphere of Carver’s world, ugly, insincere and menacing, sneaks into the frames?
Fortunately, the line and choreography are so legible in Sleeper that they won’t let you get lost in the story, as long as it’s not Brubaker’s goal. You will be able to admire Miss Misery in many enticing poses, and undercover agents in action. In my opinion, the first volume was more interesting in terms of its plot, and especially world-creating. This one focuses on the cover characters, Bonnie and Clyda of this dark universe.
The second volume of Sleeper is more brutal than the previous one. It frees the main character from the limitations of being a double agent, gives him subjectivity and the will to live. The two-story combinations shown in it are meticulously elaborated, but – like everything – human error can turn them into a great catastrophe. In short, it keeps you in suspense until the very end. Carver or the world.
