Newbury & Hobbes: The Undying - a Titan Comics mini-series

Newbury & Hobbes
"The Undying"
Publisher: Titan Comics
Publication Date (Sept. 2018 - Dec. 2018)
ISBN - 9781782760399**
**For Trade Paperback, Release Date April 2019
96 pages of story and arg

For those who remember the old Crossgen comic book series, Ruse, well, let me tell you - this is the series for you! And what surprised me about this series was that, while this is the first comic book mini-series about these characters, it is by far not the first story about them! Apparently author George Mann has used this opportunity to bring his fictional characters to life in comic form - but prior to this, Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes have been solving crime in the steampunk world in five different novels! So, if this small taste of their world isn't enough, you can go to B&N, Books-A-Million, or Amazon and find more of their adventures...

Newbury is a single-minded detective in a steampunk London, while Hobbes is his capable, beautiful, and patient assistant who is anything but a damsel in distress. Where Newbury goes, Hobbes goes, even if that means right into the heart of danger. "The Undying" opens with Newbury and Hobbes fighting a group of men wearing skull masks; but, upon defeating them, they discover the villains are not fully men - they are cyborgs, part-man and part-machine. Leaving the killing machines to the police, Newbury and Hobbes return home to discover a new case awaits them.

Chief Inspector Charles Bainbridge, one of Newbury's dearest friends, is waiting for them. It seems one Professor Archibald Angelchrist has discovered a rather unusual cadaver that requires Newbury's expertise. And thus begins this latest adventure for the daring duo, who find that the cadaver is a monstrous experiment of the late Dr. Aubrey Knox - a villain that Newbury and Hobbes have faced before, but eventually saw his demise. Or did they?

The men(?) in skull masks who sit silently in their jail cell suddenly start ticking, and within seconds, they explode, taking about a portion of the prison, as well as the prisoners and policemen therein.  Meanwhile, Newbury, Hobbes, Bainbridge, and the rest find a secret laboratory belonging to Knox that not only leads them to discover that the one cadaver was not his only experiment, but to find an entire village of those creatures living in the bowels of the sewer system and tunnels beneath London!

The story begins to pick up speed at this point, as Newbury is taken to a meeting with the Queen, who is not only aware of Knox's vile experiments, but it turns out she was a part of the scheme. And now, her involvement is threatened to be exposed, so she demands that Newbury find Knox, if he's still alive, and put an end to his plans once and for all before the truth is revealed. Having no choice, Newbury and Hobbes set out to locate Knox - and when a group of people throughout London suddenly re-appear with bombs embedded in their chests, the race against time (literally!) begins.

Mann knows how to write a really good mystery, and artist Dan Boultwood's art definitely compliments the story. The characters are unique and fun, the villain dastardly, and the supporting cast anything but stereotypical. The world in which these characters are set is not overly mechanical (as some steampunk tales seem to go), and while it is dark and seedy (what with vile doctors conducting horrific experiments on people, monster living under the streets, half-man / half-mechanical henchmen, and a queen who is not quite as innocent as she should be), Mann manages to interject enough natural humor into the characters' dialogue and situations that it keeps the tale from becoming brooding.

I bought the series because of its clear comparison with Crossgen's Ruse, and because I love a good mystery; however, the writing and the characters definitely have me interested in checking out some of Mann's novels the next time I'm at Barnes & Noble. I hope Titan Comics and Mann have plans to offer up more mini-series with these characters, as I will be first in line to buy them if they do!

RATING:  10 boarded-up theaters out of 10 for piquing, then keeping, my interest with a steampunk mystery that is well-written and perfectly drawn.