Bedlam #6

"Some of Us Got a Little More Lost Than Others"
written by Nick Spencer
art by Riley Rossmo

And just like that, it's over.  While Spencer took Bedlam #6 in a significantly different direction than I had been anticipating, it was still less immediately satisfying than its predecessors, in large part because Fillmore Press and Detective Acevedo shared so few scenes.  Still out from Press's drugged coffee, Ramira Acevedo spends most of the issue unconscious while Press interrogates jailed pedophile, former Archbishop Warton, and superhero the First battles Warton's zealous former victim and current Angel of Death, Eric, at the hospital.

It continues Bedlam's previous pattern of contrast:  Fillmore Press vs. the First, Archbishop Warton vs. his protégé Eric.  While the most obvious villain and hero battle on a far more public stage and with considerably more public results, the less obvious hero does his own negotiating with a far more sinister and ultimately more powerful villain.  Warton's big watery eyes and diminutive stature contrast sharply with the powerful and intimidating physique of the younger Eric, much like Press's own wiry frame and pale skin differ so greatly from the First's muscled body and metal armor.  And, like before, Press proves himself more valuable and effective than the First, who before Warton's call to the hospital was nearly defeated by the self-mutilated shooter.

While Warton's motivations are predictably radical and filled with brimstone and his actions amount to little more than a tantrum disguised as divine retribution, Press's solution is remarkably clever, one that will continue to put him in Warton's company regularly for the foreseeable future.  And they are a strange pair; it remains unclear just how much of himself Press sees in Warton, as well as what—aside from the most immediate cessation of the slaughter at the hospital—Press hopes to achieve for himself or for Warton through this compromise.

However, Spencer does set up the future of the series in its final few pages.  Realizing the corrupt politics behind the department's handling of her case, Detective Acevedo finds herself alienated—mostly by her own principled decision—from her boss.  Still disinclined to publicly admit Press's value in the investigation and the crisis resolution, Acevedo is, at least by her own standards, generous in her thanks to Fillmore and not entirely adverse to his offer to return to the precinct to give a full statement, though she may still suspect he's not fully disclosing the content of his conversation with Warton.  The conclusion of Bedlam's first arc may have seemed somewhat swift, but their growing partnership remains the nucleus of the series, and one to keep watching.