American Century #17

American Century #17, September 2002, Vertigo/DC Comics
writers: Howard Chaykin & David Tischman
penciller: Marc Laming
inker/letterer: Digital Chameleon
colorist: Pam Rambo & Digital Chameleon
assistant editor: Mariah Huehner
editor: Shelly Bond

My throat hurts. My back feels twisted. I have the chills. Classic symptoms of the household flu. I never got sick. Now, this makes three times in the past five months.

I read American Century #17 because the character on the cover looked as cold as I feel. The ongoing narration throughout the issue confirms the chill in the snowy air of Chicago, as Harry Kraft returns to the city he abandoned under the pretense that he had died. Excluding the subplots, which consumed a lot of page space but featured characters with intriguing quirks all their own, this issue is about a man with no place in the world other than the one place he told himself he would revisit again; it’s an interesting dilemma rife with regret and melodramatic introspection, a defense mechanism Kraft undoubtedly implements to hide his latent vulnerability. I enjoyed the issue.

But I’ll enjoy bed even more, now.