In Major Issues, we look at one newly-released comic book each week. Now updated Mondays.

Gardner Mounce

Shutter #5
Written by Joe Keatinge
Art by Leila del Duca, Owen Gieni
Published by Image Comics
Published: 8/13/2014

In its first five issues, Shutter has suffered from being married to its influences. Critics and readers have accused it of sharing too many similarities with Saga. There are too many analogues not to. Saga’s Lying Cat is Shutter’s Alarm Cat. Saga’s Alana is Shutter’s Kate Kristopher. Saga’s no-holds-barred world building with its television-headed technocrats and armless spiderwomen is reflected in Shutter’s ghost assassins, living-dead butlers, and cat mafias.

However, Shutter differs from Saga in a few important ways. First, Shutter is a family drama rather than a planet-hopping space opera. Sure, Shutter’s Kate Kristopher is an explorer, but our story begins after Kate’s last adventure with her father, when her father died tragically. It is the story of a grounded explorer, crippled by depression. Second, Saga’s narrator couches the story from a safe distance in the future where she can speak on the events with humor and forgiveness. Shutter has no narrator, no guiding voice to contextualize Kate’s struggle or assure the reader that, at some future time, all this will work out.

Comics are too often guilty of stripping female characters of both clothes and realistic personalities. Most women in comics are attractive, as if comic creators fear that unattractive female characters will be unpalatable to male readers–which is bullshit and insulting to both genders. Kate Kristopher is three-dimensional and independent, but, like the comic itself, is drawn too heavily from influences. She is a mixture of equal parts Hawkeye’s Kate Bishop and Saga’s Alana. She shares Kate Bishop’s off-beat humor and quirky vernacular, and Alana’s strength of character and knack of flying off the handle.

The first unique characterizing moment for Kate Kristopher happens at the end of issue 5 (no spoilers). It’s a game-changer, and comes so far out of left field that it makes you wonder how writer Joe Keatinge will handle the inevitable fallout. This is his chance to transform Kate from an amalgam of influences into a deeply flawed and unique person. But, if he fails, it will all have been for shock value.

Should You Get It?

If you haven’t started Shutter yet, wait until the trade paperback of the first six issues hits stands. Due to the giant cliffhanger at the end of issue 5, issue 6 will show us if Keatinge has the chops to take the story in a fresh direction.

Gardner Mounce is a writer, speaker, listener, husband, wife, truck driver, detective, liar. When asked to describe himself in three words, Gardner Mounce says: humble, humble, God-sent. You can find him at gardnermounce.tumblr.com or email him at gmounce611@gmail.com