Blood Tree - an Image (Mad Ghost) mini-series

Peter Tomasi is a name I recognize, not only from all the work he has done at DC Comics over the years, but more recently, for his Dark Horse mini-series, The House of Penance.  That was a great little horror story that was anything but normal for comic books.  Which is partially why I enjoyed it, because it was a story unlike any other I had read in comic form.  So, when I saw this mini-series solicited through Image Comics (under their Mad Ghost label) in Previews, I figured I would give it a try.  Plus, the cover art is absolutely gorgeous (not the same as the interior artist, as I discovered once I opened up the book) - and, what can I say?  I'm definitely someone who judges a book by its cover!

Anyway, Blood Tree is not what I first thought it was.  From some of the preview pages of art I had seen, I thought it was going to be a story about actual angels falling to Earth, dying - that is definitely the impression I had from those first few pages and from some of the covers for the series.  But, again, as with The House of Penance, this book was nothing at all that I was expecting - and was definitely so much more!  Blood Tree is the story of a serial killer.  It is also the story of police detective Dario Azzaro.  It's a story of death, righteous judgment, and breaking the cycle of history.  It's the story of what bloodlines and family trees really mean.

It all starts when a young man falls to his death after jumping off a skyscraper.  He is naked and has what appears to be wings sewn to his back.  His teeth have all been pulled and his fingerprints burned off to delay finding his identity.  The police want to write it off as a crazed suicide, but detective Dario Azzaro finds a note - "Blood Begets Blood" - that makes him think otherwise.  He and his partner, Maria Diaz, start looking into it after a second body, this time a female, falls to her death in the middle of a baseball diamond.  They find that same message scrawled on one of the stadium beams.  A pattern is emerging, and they have to stop whoever is doing this before he or she can kill again.

And that's when they find an entire family murdered - three hanging from a tree, wings on their back, and the fourth propped up in a rocking chair on the front porch.  Azzaro and Diaz know the ante has been upped, and they have to figure out who the killer is before more bodies turn up.  But the real shocker comes not when they find out who the killer is, or even why he is doing it - no, the real shocker for Azzaro is what he finds among the killer's belongings.  A very dark secret about Azzaro that even he didn't know - something that changes everything and may even have an impact on his own family's future!

This has to be some of Tomasi's best work to date.  It's a dark story, well-written with superb characterization and a twisted little mystery.  The art, by Maxim Simic, fits perfectly with the story.  Yes, Simic's art is not nearly as smooth as Gary Frank's cover art, but it's rough edges actually give strength to the characters and the story itself.  The story is not all nice and pretty, and the characters are not all perfectly gorgeous - so why shouldn't the art reflect that?  Reading the story is like watching real people in the real world, and it makes the story that much more horrifying.

I would definitely recommend this series, and quite frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing some more stories of Azzaro and Diaz - these two make great detective duo!

RATING:  10 glow-in-the-dark angels out of 10 for keeping the fresh ideas coming, with great storytelling and fantastic art!