Pearl #2
JinxWorld/DC Comics
Words by: Brian Michael Bendis
Art by: Michael Gaydos
Color by: Michael Gaydos
Pearl gives us another use for a banana, and that’s to practice tattooing. With this issue, Bendis and Gaydos mix in how Pearl learned to tattoo and her involvement in the Yakuza. In other words, this is the set-up issue for how Pearl started her path to who she is now and what her future holds.
The consequences of her actions in the previous issues are on full display here, by atoning for killing the members of a rival clan. Bendis and Gaydos use flashbacks to give her backstory connections with the Yakuza. The flashbacks that are used help explain the connections for the first issues. These connections start to develop who Pearl is overall and what she is truly capable.
Bendis and Gaydos give us a pretty bland story. The art stands out in some pages and blends together in others, which makes it confusing to tell the characters expressions. The cutaway to flashbacks and the current story gets confusing as it seems they are grasping at straws to make the story coherent. Following up from the previous issue we see the use of flashbacks to explain the current situations. Sadly in this one, it fails and is overused to the expanse of the story.
Pearl #2 falls flat in execution and moving the story forward. We get glimpses of potential development but its overshadowed by needless cutaways and useless dialog. Hopefully, in the next issue, this gets corrected as the story does have potential as tattoos and Yakuzas do go together in Japanese culture.