Bedlam #5

"Time to Set Our Little Bird Free"
written by Nick Spencer
art by Riley Rossmo

For most of its early run, Bedlam has kept its feet in two different worlds—one in Fillmore Press's former life as Madder Red along with his unusual, to say the least, hospital stay under a mysterious doctor with Jack Nicholson eyebrows and the other in the present as Press attempts to help Detective Acevedo and the police with a new serial case—and "Time to Set Our Little Bird Free" takes significant steps in integrating these two phases.  After apparently ten years under the strange doctor's care and two years before the events of the present, Fillmore is released, after first demonstrating his rather extreme devotion to his new lifestyle.

From early in Bedlam #1, when Fillmore sees his masked alter-ego in the mirror, Press's relationship to his mask and the identity it curtails has always been a tense and ambiguous one.  Though after four issues I'd become lulled into trust in Press's rehabilitated self, his reluctance to part with it, which is so evocatively illustrated by Rossmo, is somewhat troubling, especially as he walks into his confrontation with former Archbishop Warton.

Once again, the best component of Bedlam remains the unexpectedly easy chemistry between Press and Detective Acevedo.  As prickly and determined to deflect Press as Acevedo remains, she continues to concede to Press's tactfully manipulative posturing, playing up his punched jaw and unofficial interrogation by the First, and yet she never seems genuinely displeased by it.  Press's casual wonder at little changes, such as Acevedo's computer in her police car, and his (perhaps affectedly, perhaps sincerely) naïve speculation about other changes, such as whether it also had its own ice machine, remain charming.  Much to Acevedo's expressed frustration, if quiet appreciation, Fillmore Press continues to be useful in their investigation.  With the First occupied with the shoot-out at the hospital begun at the end of #4, suggested by the cover but not shown in the issue, Acevedo and Press move closer to discovering the motivation behind the crimes and the true mastermind behind their perpetration.  Her wry smile, as well as Press's childishly delighted face, as she admits, "You've been a great help, Mister Press" (Bedlam #5, p. 17), is perhaps this issue's best payoff.