Dexter Down Under #1 – Spoiler Free Review
Comic books are lovely things. They bring our favorite characters to life in ways that many of us could never do on our own. Television is really good for this too, but there are limits. After all, even your favorite shows are driven by ratings and the fans, but more by ratings. So, what happens when our favorite shows end? Where do we look to find out more about the characters that we become attached to?
That is why comic books are such a great medium. Lately, more and more TV shows have made their way to comics. If you walk into most comic books stores, you will see X-Files, Smallville, Sons of Anarchy, even a Serenity comic continuing the story of the Firefly TV show.
Two of my favorite shows ended this last year and it was hard saying goodbye to those characters. Dexter was one of those shows that I had been able to watch from the beginning. Seeing it end after 9 seasons… it was like saying goodbye to a good friend, even if that friend was a serial killer. If you are interested, you can read my article bidding Dexter Morgan a fond farewell. But, as we saw last year, Marvel Comics and Jeff Lindsay, Dexter’s creator, teamed up to being us an early story of Dexter’s life.
The second series, Dexter Down Under, continues this tradition. A great new story written by Jeff Lindsay with art by Dalibor Talajic takes Dexter to Australia. It seems he has written a book about blood spatter, his specialty, more as a manual than anything. There is not a clear way to place this in the Dexter Morgan timeline, but it does seem like it might be before he met Rita, so quite a while before the beginning of the TV show.
The basic plot of this miniseries is that Dexter is called in to consult on a series of murders that seem to be the work of a serial killer, but the cops in Canberra, Australia, are stumped on this one. Families of illegal Asian immigrants are found slaughtered on the docks shortly after sneaking into the country. Dexter, having literally written the book on blood spatter, is brought in to help.
The character of Sergeant Shawna and her resemblance to Dexter’s sister, Deb, is a great addition to this story. The story was well paced, well written, and the art helped to draw the reader in to this very different landscape as Dexter explore the land down under. I thought that Talajic’s art on this first issue was even a step up of some of the art from the first Dexter comic series.
What will happen as this story unfolds? Will Dexter “help” the police by throwing them off the trail of the real killer so he can issue his own brand of justice? Or will Dexter once again find himself battling his own Dark Passenger as well as someone else who is out to kill him? Be sure you pick up a copy of Dexter Down Under #1 and find out.
My rating: 4.5/5
really enjoyed the show when it was on. i’ll have to check this one out.
It’s a pity Jeff Lindsay didn’t bother doing even basic research. Canberra is several 100kms from the coast. It has no docks … And don’t get me started on the poor attempt at Aussieing up the policewoman.
I mean, even just a glance at an atlas or a 5 minute read of Wikipedia… As well as the “no ocean/no docks within cooee of Canberra” stuff-up, there’s scenery taken from photos of Melbourne, Sydney and the Great Ocean Road, amongst others.
Imagine if an Aussie character was sent to Washington DC, drove past the Statue of Liberty and caught a taxi to Las Vegas to interview a Klansman suspect. Would that raise any hackles in the US readership?